


Iiiii!li«^^^^ 




EXPLANATORY OF THE ABOVE. 

The names on the I'rn are in order of d ite of the death of 
the three peat Statesmen. 

On the left, the Muse of History, with fallen scroll, sits 
weeping. 

The Angelic figur?, on the right, is pointing to the three 
great liglitsi in Heaven. 



/ 



V 



C. SHIELDS, ['nnt. (omrr til Plul ux) Ooll S(tceu, N. Y. 



EULOGIES 



DELIVERKD IN THE 



SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, 



ON THE 



LIFE AND CHARACTER 



OF 



HON. JOHN C. CALHOUN, 



OF SOUTH .' JiOLINA, 



HON. HENRY CLAY, 



OF KENTUCKY, 



AND 



HON. DANIEL WEBSTER, 



OP MASSACHUSETTS. 



(Konipileti from ®ffic(i7i. JDocumcnts. 



ENTERED IN THE DISTRICT COdRT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE DISTRTCT OF 

COLnjIBIA, BY THOMAS FOSTER AND GEORGE COCHtfAN^ ., "TT" A _ "^^^^^ 



-i«*^- 




^0 



WASHINGTON: ^^^sil^A^ VV;' Sll 1] 
PUBLrSHED BY FOSTER AND COCHRAN 
18 5 3. 



:^ 



e. 



/" 



TO THE READER. 



The great venei-ation felt by the whole American people for the 
character and services of the three great sages and patriots who, 
within a brief period, have passed from the stage of action, has 
induced the undersigned to compile and present, in one volume, 
the Eulogies and just tributes of contemporary statesmen. 

The names of Calhoun, Clay, and Webster, are household 
words. Every child is taught to lisp them — and the history of 
the country would be incomplete without them. "Who is not 
anxious to treasure up the incidents and actions which have ren- 
dered the trio illustrious ? Who would consider his library com- 
plete without an epitome of the lives of such men ? 

True, the speeches which follow are the emanations of warm 
hearts in the hours of grief — but the encomiums are not the less 
just, nor the facts imbodied the less striking. They were uttered 
in the moments of sadness and sorrow — in the hours when every 
generous man is willing to lay in the grave with its eminent 
victims every unkind and uncharitable thought; yet the public 
are ever ready to admit that each and all of these great men 
were capable of " the high, the exalted, the sublime emotions of a 
patriotism, which, soaring toward Heaven, rises far above all mean, 
low, or selfish things, and is absorbed by one soul-transporting 
thought of the good and the glory of the country." 

It is believed the style of the work, and the embellishments, 
will be found to correspond with the interest of the theme. 

THOMAS FOSTER, 

GEORGE COCHRAN. 
Washington, D, C, May, 1853. 



OBITUARY HONORS 



XO THE MEMORY OF 



JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN 



IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, 

Monday, April 1st, 1850. 

On the motion of IMr. King, the reading of the Journal of 
Thursday was dispensed with. 

Mr. BUTLER rose and said : — 

Mr. President : I rise to discharge a mournful duty, and one 
which involves in it considerations well calculated to arrest the 
attention of this body. It is to announce the death of my late 
colleague, the Hon. John Caldwell Calhoun. He died at his 
lodgings in this city, yesterday morning, at half-past seven o'clock. 
He was conscious of his approaching end, and met death with for- 
titude and uncommon serenity. He had many admonitions of its 
approach, and, without doubt, he had not been indifferent to them. 
With his usual aversion to professions, he said nothing for mere 
effect on the world, and his last hours were an exemplification of 
his life and character, truth and simplicity. 

Mr. Calhoun, for some years past, had been suffering under a 
pulmonary complaint, and under its effects could have reckoned 
but on a short existence. Such was his own conviction. The 
immediate cause of his death was an affection of the heart. A few 
hours before he expired, he became sensible of his situation ; and 
when he was unable to speak, his eye and look evinced recognition 
and intelligence of what was passing. One of the last directions 
he gave was to a dutiful son, who had been attending him, to put 
away some manuscripts which had been wi'itten a short time before, 
under his dictation. 



Mr. CALnotTN was the least despondent man I oyer knew ; and he 
had, in an eminent degree, the self-sustaining power of intellect. 
His last days, and his last remarks, are exemplifications of what I 
have just said. Mental determination sustained him, when all 
others were in despair. We saw him a few days ago, in the seat 
near me, which he had so long and so honorably occupied ; we saw 
the struggle of a great mind exerting itself to sustain and overcome 
the weakness and infirmities of a sinking body. It was the exhibi- 
tion of a wounded eagle, with his eyes turned to the heavens in 
which he had soared, but into which his wings could never carry 
him again. 

Mr. President, Mr. Calhoun has lived in an eventful period of 
our Kepublic, and has acted a distinguished part. I surely do not 
venture too much, when I say that his reputation forms a striking 
part of a glorious history. Since 1811 until this time, he has been 
responsibly connected with the Federal Grovernment. As Repre- 
sentative, Senator, Cabinet Minister, and Vice President, he has 
been identified with the greatest events in the political history of 
our country. And I hope I may be permitted to say, that he has 
been equal to all the duties which were devolved upon him in the 
many critical junctures in which he was placed. Having to act a 
responsible part, he always acted a decided part. It would not 
become me to venture upon the judgment which awaits his memory. 
That will be formed by posterity before the impartial tribunal of 
history. It may be that he will have had the fate, and will have 
given to him the judgment that has been awarded to Chatham. 

I should do the memory of my friend injustice were I not to 
speak of his life in the spirit of history. The dignity of his whole 
character would rebuke any tone of remark which truth and judg- 
ment would not sanction. 

Mr. Calhoun was a native of South Carolina, and was born in 
Abbeville district, on the 18th March, 1782. He was of an Irish 
family. His father, Patrick Calhoun, was born in Ireland, and at 
an early age came to Pennsylvania, thence moved to the western 
part of "Virginia, and, after Braddock's defeat, moved to South 
Carolina in 1756. He and his family gave a name to what is 
known as the Calhoun settlement in Abbeville district. The 
motlioi- of iny colleague was a Miss Caldwell, born in Charlotte 



county, Virginia. The character of his parents had no doubt a 
sensible influence on the destiny of their distinguished son. His 
father had energy and enterprise, combined with perseverance and 
great mental determination. His mother belonged to a family of 
revolutionary heroes. Two of her brothers were distinguished in 
the Revolution. Their names and achievements are not left to 
tradition, but constitute a part of the history of the times. 

Mr. Calhoun was born in the Revolution, and in his childhood 
felt the influence of its exciting traditions. He derived from the 
paternal stock, intellect and self-reliance, and from the Caldwell's, 
enthusiasm and impulse. The traditions of the Revolution had a 
sensible influence on his temper and character. 

Mr. Calhoun, in his childhood, had but limited advantages of 
what is termed a literary tuition. His parents lived in a newly 
settled country, and among a sparse population. This population 
had but a slight connection with the lower country of South Caro- 
lina, and were sustained by emigrants from Virginia and Pennsyl- 
vania. There was, of course, but limited means of instruction to 
children. They imbibed most of their lessons from the conversa- 
tion of their parents. Mr. Calhoun has always expressed himself 
deeply sensible of that influence. At the age of thirteen he was 
put under the charge of his brother-in-law, Dr. Waddel, in Colum- 
bia county, Ceorgia. Scarcely had he commenced his literary 
course before his father and sister died. His brother-in-law, Dr. 
Waddel, devoted himself about this time to his clerical duties, and 
was a great deal absent from home. 

On his second marriage, he resumed the duties of his academy ; 
and, in his nineteenth year, Mr. Calhoun put himself under the 
charge of this distinguished teacher. It must not be supposed that 
his mind, before this, had been unemployed. He had availed him- 
self of the advantages of a small library, and had been deeply 
inspired by his reading of history. It was under such influences 
that he entered the academy of his preceptor. His progress was 
rapid. He looked forward to a higher arena with eagerness and 
purpose. 

He became a student in Yale College in 1802, and graduated 
two years afterwards with distinction, as a young man of great 
ability, and with the respect and confidence of his preceptors and 



8 

fellows. What tlicy have said and thought of him would have 
given any man a high reputation. It is the pure fountain of a 
clear reputation. If the stream has met with obstructions, they 
were such as have only shown its beauty and majesty. 

After he had graduated, Mr. Calhoun studied law, and for a 
few years practised in the courts of South Carolina, with a reputa- 
tion that has descended to the profession. He was then remarkable 
for some traits that have since characterized him. He was clear 
in his propositions, and candid in his intercourse with his brethren. 
The truth and justice of the law inculcated themselves on his mind, 
and when armed with these, he was a great advocate. 

His forensic career was, however, too limited to make a promi- 
nent part in the history of his life. He served for some years in 
the Legislature of his native State ; and his great mind made an 
impression on her statutes, some of which have had a great prac- 
tical operation on the concerns of society. From the Legislature 
of his own State he was transferred to Congress ; and from that 
time his career has been a part of the history of the Federal 
Government. 

Mr. Calhoun came into Congress at a time of deep and exciting 
interest — at a crisis of great magnitude. It was a crisis of peril 
to those who had to act in it, but of subseq^uent glory to the actors 
and the common history of the country. The invincibility of 
Great Britain had become a proverbial expression, and a war with 
her was fidl of terrific issues. Mr. Calhoun found himself at once 
in a situation of high responsibility — one that required more than 
speaking qualities and eloquence to fulfil it. The spirit of the 
people required direction ; the energy and ardor of youth were to 
be employed in affairs requiring the maturer qualities of a states- 
man. The part which Mr. Calhoun acted at this time has been 
approved and applauded by cotemporaries, and now forms a part 
of the glorious history of those times. 

The names of Clay, Calhoun, Cheves, and Lowndes, Grundy, 
Porter, and others, carried associations with them that reached 
the lieaH of the nation. Their clarion notes penetrated the army,* 



•* Governor Dodge, (now a Senator on this floor,) who was at that time a gallant officer 
of the army, informs me tliat the speeches of Calhouij and Clay were publicly read to 
the army, and exerted a most decided influence on the spirits of tlie men. 



tliey animated tlie people, and sustained the Administration of the 
Government. With such aotors, and in such scenes — the most 
eventful of oui- history — to say that Mr. Caluoun did not perform 
a second part^ is no common praise. In debate he was equal with 
Randolph, and in council he commanded the respect and confidence 
of Madison. At this period of his life he had the quality of 
Themistocles — to inspire confidence — which, after all, is the 
highest of earthly qualities in a public man ; it is a mystical some- 
thing, which is felt, but cannot be described. 

The events of the war were brilliant and honorable to both 
statesmen and soldiers, and their history may be read with enthu- 
siasm and delight. The war terminated with honor; but the 
measures which had to be taken, in a transition to a peace estab- 
lishment, were full of difficulty and embarrassment. This distin- 
guished statesman, with his usual intrepidity, did not hesitate to 
take a responsible and leading part. Under the influence of a 
broad patriotism, he acted with an unealculating liberality to all 
the interests that were involved, and which were brought under 
review of Congress. His personal adversary at this time, in his 
admiration for his genius, paid Mr. Calhoun a beautiful compli- 
ment for his noble and national sentiments, and views of policy. 
The gentleman to whom I refer is Mr. Grrosvenor, of New York, 
who used the following language in debate : — 

"He had heard with peculiar satisfaction the able, manly, and 
constitutional speech of the gentleman from South Carolina. 
(Here Mr. Grosvenor, recurring in his own mind to a personal 
difi"erence with Mr. Calhoun, which arose out of the warm party 
discussions dming the war, paused for a moment, and then pro- 
ceeded.) 

" Mr. Speakek, I will not be restrained. No barrier shall exist, 
which I will not leap over for the purpose of offering to that gen- 
tleman my thanks for the judicious, independent, and national 
course which he has pursued in this House for the last two years, 
and particularly on the subject now before us. Let the honorable 
gentleman continue with the same manly independence, aloof from 
party views and local prejudices, to pursue the great interests of 
his country, and to fulfil the high destiny for which it is manifest 
he was born. The buzz of popular applause may not cheer hiiu 



10 

on bis ■way, but he will inevitably arrive at a high and happy 
elevation in the Anew of his country and the world." 

At the termination of Mr. Madison's administration, Mr. Cal- 
houn had acquired a commanding reputation ; he was regarded as 
one of the sages of the Ilepublic. In 1817, Mr. Monroe invited 
him to a place in his Cabinet. Mr. Calhoun's friends doubted the 
propriety of his accepting it, and some of them thought he would 
put a high reputation at hazard in this new sphere of action. Per- 
haps these suggestions fired his high and gifted intellect; he 
accepted the j^lace, and went into the War Department under cir- 
cumstances that might have appalled other men. His success has 
been acknowledged. What was complex and confused, he reduced 
to simplicity and order. His organization of the War Department, 
and his administration of its undefined duties, have made the im- 
pression of an author^ having the interest of originality, and the 
sanction of trial. 

To applicants for office, IMr. Calhoun made few promises, and 
hence he was not accused of delusion and deception. When a 
public trust was involved, he would not compromise with duplicity 
or temporary expediency. 

At the expiration of Mr. Monroe's administration, Mr. Calhoun's 
name became connected with the Presidency; and from that time 
to his death he had to share the fate of all others who occupy 
prominent positions. 

The remarkable canvass for the President to succeed Mr. Mon- 
roe, terminated in returning three distinguished men to the House 
of Representatives, from whom one was to be elected. Mr. Calhoun 
was elected Vice President by a large majority. He took his seat 
in the Senate, as Vice President, on the 4th of March, 1825, hav- 
ing remained in the War Department over seven years. 

While he was Vice President, he was placed in some of the most 
trying scenes in any man's life. I do not now choose to refer to any 
thing that can have the elements of controversy ; but I hope I may 
be permitted to speak of my friend and colleague in a character in 
which all will join in paying him sincere respect. As a presiding 
officer of this body, he had the undivided respect of its members. 
He was punctual, methodical, and impartial, and had a high regard 
for the dignity of the Senate, which, as a presiding officer, he 



11 

endeavored to preserve and maintain. He looked upon debate as 
an honorable contest of intellect for truth. Such a strife has its 
incidents and its trials; but Mr. Calhoun had, in an eminent de- 
gree, a regard for parliamentary dignity and propriety. 

Upon General Hayne's leaving the Senate to become Governor 
of South Carolina, Mr. Calhoun resigned the Vice Presidency, 
and was elected in his place. All will now agree that such a 
position was environed with difficulties and dangers. His own 
State was under the ban, and he was in the national Senate to do 
her justice under his constitutional obligations. That part of his 
life posterity will review, and, I am confident, will do it full and 
impartial justice. 

After his senatorial term had expired, he went into retirement 
by his own consent. The death of JMr. Upshur — so full of me- 
lancholy associations — made a vacancy in the State Department; 
and it was by the common consent of all parties that Mr. Calhoun 
was called to fill it. This was a tribute of which any public man 
might well be proud. It was a tribute to truth, ability, and ex- 
perience. Under Mr. Calhoun's counsels, Texas was brought into 
the Union. His name is associated with one of the most remark- 
able events of history — that of one Republic being annexed to 
another by the voluntary consent of both. He was the happy 
agent to bring about this fraternal association. It is a conjunction 
under the sanction of his name, and by an influence exerted 
through his great and intrepid mind. Mr. Calhoun's connexion 
with the Executive department of the Government terminated with 
Mr. Tyler's administration. As a Secretary of State he won the 
confidence and respect of foreign ambassadors, and his despatches 
were characterized by clearness, sagacity, and boldness. 

He was not allowed to remain in retirement long. For the last 
five years he has been a member of this body, and has been en- 
gaged in discussions that have deeply excited and agitated the 
country. He has died amidst them. I had never had any par- 
ticular association with Mr. Calhoun until I became his colleague 
in this body. I had looked on his fame as others had done, and 
had admii-ed his character. There are those here who know more 
of him than I do. I shall not pronounce any such judgment as 
may be subject to a controversial criticism. But I will say, as a 



12 

matter of justice, from my own personal knowledge, that I never 
knew a fairer man in argument, or a juster man in purpose. His 
intensity allowed of little compromise. "While he did not qualify 
his own positions to suit the temper of the times, he appreciated 
the unmasked propositions of others. As a Senator, he commanded 
the respect of the ablest men of the body of which he was a mem- 
ber ; and I believe I may say that, where there was no political 
bias V« influence the judgment, he had the confidence of his breth- 
ren. As a statesman, Mr. Calhoun's reputation belongs to the 
history of the country, and I commit it to his countrymen and 
posterity. 

In my opinion, Mr. Calhoun deserves to occupy the first rank 
as a parliamentary speaker. He had always before him the dignity 
of purpose, and he spoke to an end. From a fuU mind, fired by 
genius, he expressed his ideas with clearness, simplicity, and force ; 
and in language that seemed to be the vehicle of his thoughts 
and emotions. His thoughts leaped from his mind like arrows 
from a well-drawn bow. They had both the aim and force of a 
skilful archer. He seemed to have had little regard for ornament; 
and when he used figures of speech, they were only for illustration. 
His manner and countenance were his best language ; and in these 
there was an exemplification of what is meant by Action, in that 
term of the great Athenian orator and statesman, whom, in so 
many respects, he so closely resembled. They served to exhibit 
the moral elevation of the man. 

In speaking of Mr. Calhoun as a man and a neighbor, I am 
sure I may speak of him in a sphere in which all will love to con- 
template him. Whilst he was a gentleman of striking deportment, 
he was a man of primitive taste and simple manners. He had the 
hardy virtues and simple tastes of a rej)ublican citizen. No one 
disliked ostentation and exhibition more than he did. When I say 
he was a good neiglibor, I imply more than I have expressed. It 
is summed up under the word justice. I will venture to say, tliat 
no one in his private relations could ever say that Mr. Calhoun 
treated him with injustice, or that he deceived him by professions 
or concealments. His private character was illustrated by a beau- 
tiful propriety, and was the exemplification of truth, justice, tem- 
perance, and fidelity to all his engagements. 



13 

I will yenture anotlier remark. Mr. Calhoun was fierce in his 
contests with political adversaries. He did not stop in the fight to 
count losses or bestow favors. But he forgot resentments, and 
forgave injuries inflicted by rivals, with signal magnanimity. 
Whilst he spoke freely of their faults, he could with justice appre- 
ciate the merits of all the public men of whom I have heard him 
speak. He was sincerely attached to the institutions of this coun- 
try, and desired to presei've them pure, and make them perpetual. 

By the death of Mr. Calhoun, one of the brightest luminaries 
has been extinguished in the political firmament. It is an event 
which will produce a deep sensation throughout this broad land, 
and the civilized world. 

I have forborne to speak of his domestic relations. They make 
a sacred circle, and I will not invade it. 

Mr. Butler then ofiered the following resolutions : — 

Resolved unanimously, That a committee be appointed by the Vice President to take 
order for superintending the funeral of the Hon: John Caldwell Calhoun, wliich will 
take place to-morrow, at 19 o'clock meridian, and that the Senate mil attend the same: 

Resolved unanimowly, That the members of tlie Senate, from a sincere desire of show- 
ing every mark of respect due to the memory of the Hon: John Caldwell Calhoun, 
deceased, late a member thereof, will go into mourning for him for one month, by the usual 
mode of wearing crape on the left arm: 

Resolved unanimously, That, as an additional mark of respect to the memory of the de- 
ceased, the Senate do now adjourn: 

Mr, CLAY said : — 

Mr. President, prompted by my own feelings of profound regret, 
and by the intimations of some highly esteemed friends, I wish, in 
rising to second the resolutions which have been offered, and which 
have just been read, to add a few words to what has been so well 
and so justly said by the surviving colleague of the illustrious 
deceased. 

My personal acquaintance with him, Mr. President, commenced 
upwards of thu-ty-eight years ago. We entered at the same time, 
together^ the House of Kepresentatives, at the other end of this 
building. The Congress, of which we thus became members, was 
that amongst whose deliberations and acts was the declaration of 
war against the most powerful nation, as it respects us, in the 
world. During the preliminary discussions which arose in the 
preparation for that great event, as well as during those which 



14 

took place when the resolution was finally adopted, no member 
displayed a more lively and patriotic sensibility to the wrongs 
which led to that momentous event than the deceased, whose death 
we all now so much deplore. Ever active, ardent, able, no one 
was in advance of him in advocating the cause of his country, and 
denouncing the foreign injustice which compelled us to appeal to 
arms. Of all the Congresses with which I have had any acquaint- 
ance since my entry into the service of the Federal Government, 
in none, in my humble opinion, has been assembled such a galaxy 
of eminent and able men as were in the House of Representatives 
of that Congress which declared the war, and in that immediately 
following the peace ; and, amongst that splendid constellation, none 
shone more bright and brilliant than the star which is now set. 

It was my happiness, sir, during a large part of the life of the 
departed, to concur with him on all great questions of national 
policy. And, at a later period, when it was my fortune to differ 
from him as to measures of domestic policy, I had the happiness to 
agree with him generally as to those which concerned our foreign 
relations, and especially as to the preservation of the peace of the 
country. During the long session at which the war was declared, 
we were messmates, as were other distinguished members of Con- 
gress from his own patriotic State. I was afforded, by the inter- 
course which resulted from that fact, as well as the subsequent in- 
timacy and intercourse which arose between us, an opportunity to 
form an estimate, not merely of his public, but of his private life ; 
and no man with whom I have ever been acquainted, exceeded him 
in habits of temperance and regularity, and in aU the freedom, 
frankness, and affability of social intercourse, and in all the tender- 
ness, and respect, and affection, which he manifested towards that 
lady who now mourns more than any other the sad event which 
has just occurred. 

Such, Mr. President, was the high estimate I formed of his 
transcendent talents, that, if at the end of his service in the exe- 
cutive department, under Mr. Monroe's administration, the duties 
of which he performed with such signal ability, he had been called 
to the highest office in the Government, I should have felt perfectly 
assured that under his auspices, the honor, the prosperity, and the 
glory of our country would have been safely placed. 



15 



Sii', he lias gone ! No more shall we witness from yonder seat 
the flashes of that keen and penetrating eye of his, darting through 
this chamber. No more shall we be thrilled by that torrent of 
clear, concise, compact logic, poured out from his lips, which, if it 
did not always carry conviction to our judgment, always com- 
manded our great admiration. Those eyes and those lips are closed 
forever ! 

And when, Mr. President, will that great vacancy which has 
been created by the event to which we are now alluding, when will 
it be filled by an equal amount of ability, patriotism, and devotion, 
to what he conceived to be the best interests of his country ? 

Sir, this is not the appropriate occasion, nor would I be the ap- 
propriate person, to attempt a delineation of his character, or the 
powers of his enlightened mind. I will only say, in a few words, 
that he possessed an elevated genius of the highest order ; that in 
felicity of generalization of the subjects of which his mind treated, 
I have seen him surpassed by no one ; and the charm and captiva- 
ting influence of his colloquial powers have been felt by all who 
have conversed with him. I was his senior, Mr. President, in 
years — in nothing else. According to the course of nature, I 
ought to have preceded him. It has been decreed otherwise ; but 
I know that I shall linger here only a short time, and shall soon 
follow him. 

And how brief, how short is the period of human existence 
allotted even to the youngest amongst us ! Sir, ought we not to 
profit by the contemplation of this melancholy occasion ? Ought 
we not to draw from it the conclusion, how unwise it is to indulge 
in the acerbity of unbridled debate ? How imwise to yield our- 
selves to the sway of the animosities of party feeling ? How wrong 
it is to indulge in those unhappy and hot strifes which too often 
exasperate our feelings and mislead our judgments in the dis- 
charge of the high and responsible duties which we are called to 
perform ? How unbecoming, if not presumptuous, it is in us, who 
are the tenants of an hour in this earthly abode, to wrestle and 
struggle together with a violence which would not be justifiable 
if it were our perpetual home ! 

In conclusion, sir, while I beg leave to express my cordial sym- 
pathies and sentiments of the deepest condolence towards all who 



16 

stand in near relation to liim, I trust we sliall all be instructed by 
the eminent virtues and merits of his exalted character, and be 
taught by his bright example to fulfil our great public duties by 
the lights of our own judgment, and the dictates of our OAvn con- 
sciences, as he did, according to his honest and best comprehension 
of those duties, faithfully, and to the last. 

Mr. WEBSTER said: — 

I hope the Senate will indulge me in adding a very few words 
to what has been said. My apology for this presumption is the 
very long acquaintance which has subsisted between Mr. Calhoun 
and myself. We are of the same age. I made my first entrance 
into the House of Representatives in May, 1813, and there found 
Mr. Calhoun. He had already been in that body for two or three 
years. I found him then an active and efl&cient member of the 
assembly to which he belonged, taking a decided part, and exer- 
cising a decided influence, in all its deliberations. 

From that day to the day of his death, amidst all the strifes of 
party and politics, there has subsisted between us, always, and 
without interruption, a great degree of personal kindness. 

Differing widely on many great questions respecting the institu- 
tions and government of the country, those difierences never inter- 
rupted our personal and social intercourse. I have been present 
at most of the distinguished instances of the exhibition of his talents 
in debate. I have always heard him with pleasure, often with 
much instruction, not unfrequently with the highest degree of ad- 
miration. 

Mr. Calhoun was calculated to be a leader in whatsoever asso- 
ciation of political friends he was thrown. He was a man of un- 
doubted genius, and of commanding talent. All the country and 
all the world admit that. His mind was both perceptive and 
vigorous. It was clear, quick, and strong. 

Su\ the eloquence of Mr. Calhoun, or the manner of his exhibi- 
tion of his sentiments in public bodies, was part of his intellectual 
character. It grew out of the qualities of his mind. It was plain, 
strong, terse, condensed, concise; sometimes impassioned — still 
always severe. Ecjecting ornament, not often seeking far for 
illustration, his power consisted in the plainness of his propositions, 



17 

in the closeness of his logic, and in the earnestness and energy of 
his rdanner. These are the qualities, as I think, which have enabled 
him through such a long course of years to speak often, and yet 
always command attention. His demeanor as a Senator is known 
to us all — is appreciated, venerated by us all. No man was more 
respectful to others ; no man carried himself with greater decorum, 
no man with superior dignity. I think there is not one of us but 
felt when he last addressed us from his seat in the Senate, his form 
still erect, with a voice by no means indicating such a degree of 
physical weakness as did, in fact, possess him, with clear tones, and 
an impressive, and, I may say, an imposing manner, who did not 
feel that he might imagine that we saw before us a Senator of 
Rome, when Rome survived. 

Sir, I have not in public nor in private life known a more as- 
siduous person in the discharge of his appropriate duties. I have 
known no man who wasted less of life in what is called recreation, 
or employed less of it in any pursuits not connected with the im- 
mediate discharge of his duty. He seemed to have no recreation 
but the pleasure of conversation with his friends. Out of the 
chambers of Congress, ho was either devoting himself to the acqui- 
sition of knowledge, pertaining to the immediate subject of the 
duty before him, or else he was indulging in those social interviews 
in which he so much delighted. 

My honorable friend from Kentucky has spoken in just terms 
of his colloquial talents. They certainly were singular and emi- 
nent. There was a charm in his conversation not often found. 
He delighted, especially, in conversation and intercoxirse with 
young men. I suppose that there has been no man among us who 
had more winning manners, in such an intercourse and conversa- 
tion, with men comparatively young, than Mr. Calhoun. I believe 
one great power of his character, in general, was his conversational 
talent. I believe it is that, as well a^ a consciousness of his high 
integrity, and the greatest reverence for his intellect and ability, 
that has made him so endeared an object to the people of the State 
to which he belonged. 

Mr. President, he had the basis, the indispensable basis, of aU 
high character; and that was, unspotted integrity — unimpeached 
honor and character. If he had aspirations, they were high, and 



18 

honorable, and noble. There was nothing groveling, or low, or 
meanly selfish, that came near the head or the heart of Mr. Cal- 
houn. Firm in his jjurpose, perfectly patriotic and honest, as I 
am sure he was, in the principles that he espoused, and in the 
measures that he defended, aside from that large regard for that 
species of distinction that conducted him to eminent stations for 
the benefit of the Republic, I do not believe he had a selfish motive, 
or selfish feeling. 

However, sir, he may have differed from others of us in his po 
litieal opinions, or his political principles, those principles and those 
opinions will now descend to posterity, under the sanction of a 
great name. He has lived long enough, he has done enough, and 
he has done it so well, so successfully, so honorably, as to connect 
himself for all time with the records of his country. He is now 
a historical character. Those of us who have known him here, 
will find that he has left upon om* minds and our hearts a strong 
and lasting impression of his person, his character, and his public 
performances, which, while we live, will never be obliterated. We 
shall hereafter, I am sure, indulge in it as a grateful recollection 
that we have lived in his age, that we have been his cotemporaries, 
that we have seen him, and heard him, and known him. We shall 
delight to speak of him to those who are rising up to fill our 
places. And, when the time shall come when we ourselves shall 
go, one after another, in succession, to our graves, we shall carry 
with us a deep sense of his genius and character, his honor and 
integrity, his amiable deportment in private life, and the purity of 
his exalted patriotism. 

Mr. RUSK said: — 
Mr. President : I hope it will not be considered inappropriate 
for me to say a word upon, this solemn occasion. Being a native 
of the same State with the distinguished Senator, whose death has 
cast such a gloom upon this Senate and the audience here assem- 
bled, I had the good fortune, at an early period of my life, to make 
his acquaintance. At that time he was just entering on that 
bright career which has now terminated. I was then a boy, with 
prospects any thing but flattering. To him, at that period, I was 
indebted for words of kindness and encouragement; and often 



19 

since, in the most critical positions in which I have been placed, 
a recurrence to those words of encouragement has inspired me 
with resolution to meet difficulties that beset my path. Four years 
ago, I had the pleasure of renewing that acquaintance, after an 
absence of some fifteen years; and this took place after he had 
taken an active pai't in the question of annexing Texas to the 
United States, adding a new sense of obligation to my feeling of 
gratitude. 

In the stirring questions that have agitated the country, it was 
my misfortune sometimes to differ from him, but it is a matter of 
heartfelt gratification for me to know that our personal relations 
remained unaltered. And, sir, it will be a source of pleasant, 
though sad, reflection to me throughout life to remember, that on 
the last day on which he occupied his seat in this chamber, his 
body worn down by disease, but his mind as vigorous as ever, we 
held a somewhat extended conversation on the exciting topics of 
the day, in which the same kind feelings, which had so strongly 
impressed me in youth, were still manifested toward me by the 
veteran statesman. But, sir, he is gone from among us ; his voice 
will never again be heard in this chamber ; his active and vigorous 
mind will participate no more in our councils ; his spirit has left a 
world of trouble, care, and anxiety, to join the spirits of those 
patriots and statesmen who have preceded him to a brighter and 
better world. If, as many believe, the spirits of the departed hover 
around the places they have left, I earnestly pray that his may 
soon be permitted to look back upon our country, which he has 
left in excitement, confusion, and apprehension, restored to calm- 
ness, security, and fraternal feeling, as broad as the bounds of our 
Union, and as fixed as the eternal principles of justice, in which 
our Grovernment has its foundation. 

Mr. CLEMENS said..- - 
I do not expect, Mr. President, to add any thing to what has 
already been said of the illustrious man, whose death we .alb so 
deeply deplore ; but silence upon an occasion like this, would by 
no means meet the expectations of those whose representative I am. 
To borrow a figure from the Senator from Kentucky, the brightest 
star in the brilliant galaxy of the Union has gone out, and Ala- 



20 

bama claims a place among the chief mourners over the event. 
Differing often from the great Southern statesman on questions of 
public policy, she has yet always accorded due homage to his ge- 
nius, and stiU more to that blameless purity of life which entitles 
him to the highest and the noblest epitaph which can be graven 
upon a mortal tomb. For more than forty years an active partici- 
pant in all the fierce struggles of party, and sm-rounded by those 
corrupting influences to which the politician is so often subjected, 
his personal character remained not only untarnished, but unsus- 
pected. He walked through the flames, and even the hem of his 
garment was unscorched. 

It is no part of my purpose to enter into a recital of the public 
acts of JouN C. Calhoun. It has already been partly done by his 
colleague; but even that, in my judgment, was unnecessary. 
Years after the celebrated battle of Thermopylae, a traveller, on 
^dsiting the spot, found a monument with the simple inscription, 
" Stranger, go tell at Lacedsemon that we died in obedience to her 
laws." " Why is it," he asked, " that the names of those who feU 
here are not inscribed on the stone ?" " Because," was the proud 
reply, " it is impossible that any Grreek should ever forget them." 
Even so it is with him of whom I speak. His acts are graven on 
the hearts of his countrymen, and time has no power to obliterate 
the characters. Throughout this broad land — 



" The meanest rill, the mightiest river. 
Rolls mingling with his fame forever." 

Living, sir, in an age distinguished above all others for its intel- 
ligence, surrounded throughout his whole career by men, any one 
of whom would have marked an era in the world's history, and 
stamped the time in which he lived with immortality, Mr. Caluoun 
yet won an intellectual eminence, and commanded an admiration 
not only unsurpassed but unequalled, in all its parts, by any of his 
giant compeers. That great light is now extinguished ; a place in 
this Senate is made vacant which cannot be filled. The sad tidings 
have been borne upon the lightning's wing to the remotest corners 
of the Republic, and millions of freemen are now mourning with 
us over all that is left of one who was scai'cely "lower than the 
angels." 



21 

I may be permitted, ?.Ir. President, to express my gratification 
at what we have heard and witnessed this day. Kentucky has 
been heard through the lips of one, who is not only her greatest 
statesman, but the world's greatest living orator. The great ex- 
pounder of the Constitution, whose massive intellect seems to com- 
prehend and give clearness to all things beneath the sun, has 
spoken for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. From every 
quarter, the voice of mourning is mingled with notes of the high- 
est admiration. These crowded galleries, the distinguished gen- 
tlemen who fill this floor, all indicate that here have 

" Bards, artists, sages, reverently met, 
To waive each separating plea 
Of sect, clime, party, and degree. 
Ail honoring liim on whom nature all honor ahed." 

The resolutions were then unanimously adopted. 



f 



IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES; 



■^♦^ 



Tuesday, AjjtU 2, 1850. 

The remains of the deceased were brought into the Senate at 12 
o'clock, attended by the Committee of Arrangements and the Pall- 
bearers. 



COMMITTEE OF ARRANGEMENTS. 



Mr. mason, 

Mr. DAVIS, of Miss. 

Mr. ATCHISON, 



Mr. dodge, of Wisconsin, 
Me. DICKINSON, 
Mr. GREENE. 



PALL-BEARERS. 



Mr. MANGUM, 
Mr. clay, 
Mr. WEBSTER, 



Mr.. CASS, 
Mr. king, 
Mr. BERRIEN. 



The funeral cortege left the Senate chamber for the Congres- 
sional Burial Ground, (where the body was temporarily deposited,) 
attended by the President of the United States, both Houses of 
Congress, the Justices of the Supreme Coui-t, Heads of Depart- 
ments, the Diplomatic Corps, officers of the Army and Navy, the 
corporate authorities of the city of Washington, citizens, strangers, 
&c., &c. 



A SERMOjV 

PREACHED IN THE SENATE CHAMBER 

APRIL 2, 1850, 

AT THE FUNERAL OF THE 

HON. JOHN C. CALHOUN, 

SENATOR OF THE U. S. FROM SOUTH CAROLINA, 

BY THE REV. C. M. BUTLER, D. D., 

CHAPLAIN OF THE SENATE. 



I have said ye are gods, and all of yon are children of the Most High ; but ye shall die 
like men, and fall like one of the princes. — Psalm Ixxxii, 6, 7. 

One of the princes is fallen ! A prince in intellect ; a prince 
in his sway over human hearts and minds ; a prince in the wealth 
of his own generous affections, and in the rich revenues of ad- 
miring love poured into his heart ; a prince in the dignity of his 
demeanor — this prince has fallen — fallen! 

And ye all, his friends and peers, illustrious statesmen, orators, 
and warriors — "I have said ye are gods, and all of you are children 
of the Most High ; hut ye shall die like men, and fall like this one 
of the princes !" 

The praises of the honored dead have been, here and elsewhere, 
fitly spoken. The beautifully blended benignity, dignity, simpli- 
city, and purity of the husband, the father, and the friend; the 
integrity, sagacity, and energy of the statesman; the compressed 
intenseness, the direct and rapid logic of the orator; all these 
have been vividly portrayed by those who themselves illustrate 
what they describe. There seem still to linger around this hall 
echoes of the voices, which have so faithfully sketched the life, so 
happily discriminated the powers, and so affectionately eulogized 
the virtues of the departed, that the muse of history will note 
down the words, as the outline of her future lofty narrative, her 
nice analysis, and her glowing praise. 

23 



24 

But the echo of those eulogies dies away. All that was mortal 
of their honored object lies here unconscious, in the theatre of his 
glory. "Lord of the lion heart and eagle eye" — there he lies! 
that strong heart still, that bright eye dim ! Another voice claims 
youi" eai*. The minister of God, standing over the dead, is sent to 
say — "Ye are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High ; 
hut ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes." He is 
sent to remind you that there are those here, not visible to the eye 
of sense, who are greater than the greatest of ye all — even Death, 
and Death's Lord and Master. 

Death is here. I see him stand over his prostrate victim, and 
grimly smile, and shake at us his unsated spear, and bid us all 
attend this day on him. He is King to-day, and leads us all cap- 
tive in his train, to swell his triumph and proclaim his power. And 
there is no visitant that can stand before the soul of man, with 
such claims on his awed, intent, and teachable attention. "When, 
as on a day, and in a scene like this, he holds us in his presence 
and bids us hear him — who can dare to disregard his mandate ? 
Oh, there is no thought or fact, having reference to this brief scene 
of things, however it may come with a port and tone of dignity 
and power, which does not dwindle into meanness in the presence 
of that great thought, that great fact, which has entered and dark- 
ened the Capitol to-day — Death ! To make us see that, by a law 
perfectly inevitable and irresistible, soul and body are soon to sepa- 
rate ; that this busy scene of earth is to be suddenly and forever 
left ; that this human heart is to break through the cux-le of warm, 
congenial, familiar, and fostering sympathies and associations, and to 
put off, all alone, into the silent dark — this is the object of the 
dread message to us of death. And as that message is spoken to a 
soul which is conscious of sin ; which knows that it has not within 
itself resources for self-purification, and self-sustaining peace and 
joy ; which realizes, in the very core of its conscience, retribution 
as a moral law ; it comes fraught with the unrest, which causes it 
to be at once dismissed, or which lodges it in the soul, a visitant 
whose first coming is gloom, but whose continued presence shall 
be glory. Then the anxious spirit, peering out with intense eai'- 
nestness into the dark unknown, may, in vain, question earth of 



25 

the destiny of the soul, and lift to heaven the passionate invoca- 
tion — 

" Answer me, burning stars of night 
Where hath the spirit gone ; 
Which, past the reacli of mortal sight, 
E'en as a breeze hath flown?" 

And tlie stars answer him, " We roll 

In pomp and power on high ; 
But of the never dying soul, 

Ask things that cannot die !" 

" Things that cannot die !" God only can tell us of the spirit- 
world. He assures us, by his Son, that death is the child of sin. 
He tells us what is the power of this king of terrors. He shows 
us that in sinning " Adam all die." He declares to us that, sinful 
by nature and by practice, we are condemned to death ; that we 
are consigned to wo ; that we are unfit for Heaven ; that the con- 
dition of the soul which remains thus condemned and unchanged, 
is far drearier and more dreadful beyond, than this side, the grave. 
No wonder that men shrink from converse with death ; for all his 
messages are woful and appalling. 

But, thanks be to God ! though death be here, so also is death's 
Lord and Master. " As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall 
all be made alive." That Saviour, Christ, assures us that all who 
repent, and forsake their sins, and believe in him, and live to him, 
shall rise to a life glorious and eternal, with Him and His, in 
Heaven. He tells us that if we are his, those sharp shafts which 
death rattles in our ears to-day, shall but transfix, and only for a 
season, the garment of our mortality ; and that the emancipated 
spirits of the righteous shall be borne, on angel wings, to that 
peaceful paradise where they shall enjoy perpetual rest and felicity. 
Then it need not be a gloomy message which we deliver to you to- 
day, that " ye shall die as men, and fall like one of the princes ;" 
for it tells us that the humblest of men may be made equal to the 
angels ; and that earth's princes may become " kings and priests 
unto God !" 

In the presence of these simplest yet grandest truths ; with these 
thoughts of death and the conqueror of death ; with this splendid 
trophy of his power proudly held up to our view by death, I need 
utter to you no common-place on the vanity of our mortal life, the 



26 

inevitableness of its termination, and the solemnities of our after- 
being. Here and now, on this theme, the silent dead is preaching 
to you more impressively than could the most eloquent of the living. 
You feel now, in your inmost heart, that that great upper range 
of things with which you are connected as immortals ; that moral 
administration of God, who stretches over the infinite of existence ; 
that magnificent system of ordered governments, to whose lower 
circle we now belong, which consists of thrones, dominions, princi- 
palities, and powers, which rise — 

" Orb o'er orb, and height o'er height," 

to the enthroned Supreme ; you feel that this, your high relation 
to the Infinite and Eternal, makes poor and low the most august 
and imposing scenes and dignities of earth, which flit, like shadows, 
through your three-score years and ten. Oh, happy will it be, if 
the vivid sentiment of the horn- become the actuating conviction 
of the life ! Happy will it be, if it take its place in the centre 
of the soul, and inform all its thoughts, feelings, principles, and 
aims! Then shall this lower system of human things be con- 
sciously linked to, and become part of, and take glory from that 
spiritual sphere, which, all unseen, encloses us, whose actors and 
heroes are "angels and archangels, and all the company of 
heaven." Then would that be permanently and habitually felt by 
all, which was here, and in the other chamber yesterday so elo- 
quently expressed, that "vain are the personal strifes and party 
contests in which you daily engage, in view of the great account 
which you may all so soon be called upon to render;"* and that 
" it is unbecoming and presumptuous in those who are the tenants 
of an hour in this earthly abode, to wrestle and struggle together 
with a violence which would not be justifiable if it were your per- 
petual home."t Then, as we see to-day, the sister States, by their 
Representatives, linked hand in hand, in mournful attitude, around 
the bier of one in whose fame they all claim a share, we should 
look upon you as engaged in a sacrament of religious patriotism, 
whose spontaneous, unpremeditated vow, springing consentient 



* .Mr. VVimhrop's speech in the House of Representatives. 
fMr. Clay's speech in the Senate. 



27 

from all your hearts, and going up unitedly to Leaven, would be • 
" Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable !" 
But I must no longer detain you. May we all — 

" So live, tliat when our summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan, that moves 
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
We go not like the quarry-slave at night 
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach our grave 
Like one who wraps tlie drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreamo. 



28 

In the Senate of the United States, 

Ap'il Sd, 1850. 

Resolved, As a mark of the respect entertained by the Senate, 
for the memory of the hxte John Caldwell Calhoun, a Senator 
from South Carolina, and for his long and distinguished service in 
the jmblic councils, that his remains be removed at the pleasure of 
his surviving family, in charge of the Sergeant-at-Arms, and 
attended by a committee of the Senate, to the place designated for 
their interment in the bosom of his native State ; and that such 
committee, to consist of sis Senators, be appointed by the President 
of the Senate, who shall have full power to carry the foregoing 
resolution into effect. 

Attest: ASBURY DICKINS, Secretary. 



In the Senate of the United States, 

April m, 1850. 

In pursuance of the foregoing resolution — 
Mr. Mason, Mr. Davis, of Miss., Mr. Berrien, Mr. Webster, 
Mr. Dickinson, and Mr. Dodge, of Iowa, were appointed the 
committee. 

Attest: ASBUHY DICKINS, Secretary. 



In the Senate of the United States, 

April 9th, 1850. 
Mr. Webster having been, on his motion, excused from serving 
on the committee to attend the remains of the late John C. Calhoun 
to the State of South Carolina, 

On motion, by Mr. Mason, 
Ordered, That a member be appointed by the Vice President to 
supply the vacancy, and Mr. Clarke was appointed. 

Attest: ASBURY DIGKINS, Secretary. 



29 

In the Senate or the United States, 

April Zd, 1850. 

Resolved, That the Vice President be requested to communicate 
to the Executive of the State of South Carolina, information of the 
death of the Hon. John C. Calhoun, late a Senator from the said 
State. 

Attest: ASBURY DICKINS, Secretary. 



Senate Chamber, April Zd, 1850. 

Sir: In pursuance of a resolution of the Senate, a copy of 
which is enclosed, it becomes my duty to communicate to you the 
painful intelligence of the decease of the Hon. John Caldwell 
Calhoun, late a Senator of the United States from the State of 
South Carolina, who died in this city the 31st ultimo. 
I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant, 

MILLARD FILLMORE, 
Vice President of the U. S., and President of the Senate. 
His excellency, Governor 

Of the State of South Carolina, Columbia. 



Senate of the United States, 

Washington city, April 4:th, 1850. 

To his excellency, W. B. Seabrook, 

Governor of South Carolina. 

Sir : I have the honor to make known to you, that a committee 
of the Senate has been appointed to attend the remains of their 
late honored associate, Mr. Calhoun, to the place that may be 
designated for his interment in his native State, when the surviving 
family shall express a wish for their removal. 

It is desirable to the committee to know whether this removal is 
contemplated by them ; and, should it be, that they be informed as 
soon as may be, (but entirely at the convenience of the family,) 
when they may desire it. 



/^ 



30 

Knowing the deep interest that will be taken by the State of 

South Carolina in the matter spoken of, I take the liberty, by this 

note, of asking that you will, at the proper time, learn what may 

be necessary to answer the foregoing inquiry, and apprise me, as 

chairman of the committee, a few days in advance. 

With great respect, I have the honor to be, &c., &c., &c., 

J. M. MASON. 



Washington, Ai^ril \^th, 1850. 
His excellency, W. B. Seabrook, 

Governor of South Carolina. 

Sir : I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter 
of the 11th instant, handed to me by Mr. Ravenel; and, on behalf 
of my associates on the committee of the Senate, and of myself, to 
accept the hospitalities you have kindly proffered to us on behalf 
of the State, on our arrival in South Carolina. 

We are directed, by the order of the Senate, to attend the 
remains of Mr. Calhoun " to the place designated for their inter- 
ment in his native State" — a duty we expect strictly to discharge, 
and are gratified to find by your communication that it will be in 
accordance with the wishes of your fellow-citizens of Carolina. 

Mr. Ravenel, of the committee of South Carolina, will have 
apprised you of the time of our probable arrival in Charleston, 
which we learn will be on Thursday, the 25th of this month. 

With great respect, I have the honor to be, &c., &c., &c., 

J. M. MASON, 
Chairman Committee of Senate 



PROCEEDINGS 



HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 



■^♦^ 



IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

Wasuington, Ajjril 1st, 1850. 

Mr. Vinton, rising, said tlaat the House might soon expect to 
receive the usual message from the Senate, announcing the melan- 
choly event occurring yesterday, (the death of the Hon. Senator 
Calhoun.) Instead of proceeding with the ordinary business of 
legislation, he would therefore move the suspension of the rules, 
that the House might take a recess until the Senate were ready to 
make that communication. 

The question on this motion being put, it was unanimously 
agreed to. 

So the House then took a recess until one o'clock and ten 
minutes, p. m., at which hour the Secretary of the Senate, Mr. 
Dickins, appearing at the bar — 

The Speaker called the House to order. 

The Secretary of the Senate then announced that he had been 
directed to communicate to the House information of the death of 
John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, late a Senator from the State 
of South Carolina, and delivered the resolutions adopted by the 
Senate on the occasion. 

Mr. HOLMES, of South Carolina, rose and addressed the House as 
follows : — 

It becomes, Mr. Speaker, my solemn duty to announce to this 
House the decease of the honorable John C. Calhoun, a Senator 
of the State of South Carolina. He expired at his lodgings in 
this city yesterday morning, at seven o'clock. He lives no longer 
among the living; he sleeps the sleep of a long night, which 

31 



32 

knows no dawning. The sun which rose so brightly on this 
morning, brought to him no healing in its beams. 

We, the Representatives of our State, come to sorrow over the 
dead ; but the virtue, and the life, and the services of the deceased, 
were not confined by metes and bounds ; but, standing on the broad 
expanse of this Confederacy, he gave his genius to the States, and 
his heart to his entire country. Carolina will not, therefore, be 
suifered to mourn her honored son in secret cells and solitary 
shades ; but her sister States will gather around her in this palace 
of the nation, and, bending over that bier, weep as she weeps, and 
mourn with the deep, afflictive mourning of her heart. Yes, sir, 
her honored son — honored in the associations of his birth, which 
occurred when the echoes and the shouts of freedom had not yet 
died along his native hills, born of parents who had partaken of 
the toils, been affected by the struggles, and fought in the battles 
for liberty — seemed as if he were baptized in the very fount of 
freedom. Reared amid the hardy scenery of nature, and amid the 
stern, pious, and reserved population, unseduced yet by the temp- 
tations, and unnerved by the luxuries of life, he gathered from 
surrounding objects, and from the people of his association, that 
peculiar hue and coloring which so transcendently marked his life. 
Unfettered by the restraints of the school-house, he wandered in 
those regions which surrounded his dwelling unmolested, and 
indulged those solitary thoughts, in rambling through her mighty 
forests, which gave that peculiar cast of thinking and reflection to 
his mighty soul. He was among a people who knew but few 
books, and over whose minds learning had not yet thrown its 
effulgence. But they had the Bible ; and, with his pious parents, 
he gathered rich lore, which surpasses that of Glreek or Roman 
story. At an age when youths are generally prepared to scan the 
classics, he was yet uninitiated in their rudiments. Under the tuition 
of the venerable Dr. Waddel^ his relative and friend, he quickly 
acquired what that gentleman was able to impart, and even then 
began to develop those mighty powers of clear perception, rapid 
analysis, quick comprehension, vast generalization, for which he 
was subsequently so eminently distinguished. He remained but a 
very short time at his school, and returned again to his rustic 
employments. But the spirit had been awakened — the inspiration 



33 

had come like to a spirit from on high ; and he felt that within him 
were found treasures that learning was essential to unfold. Ho 
gathered up his patrimony, he hastened to the College of Yale, and 
there, under the tuition of that accomplished scholar and profound 
theologian. Rev. Dr. Dwight, he became in a short period the first 
among the foremost, indulging not in the enjoyments, in the 
lusuries, and the dissipations of a college life, but with toil severe, 
with energy unbending, with devotion to his studies, he became 
(to use the language of a contemporary) " a man among boys." 
In a conflict intellectual with his great master, the keen eye of Dr. 
Dwight discerned the great qualifications which marked the man, 
and prophesied the honors that have fallen in his pathway. He 
was solitary, and associated not much with his class. He indulged 
his propensity to solitude ; he walked among the elms that surround 
that ancient college ; and in the cells, in the secret shades of that 
institution, he felt that dawning on his mind which was to precede 
the brighter and the greater day ; and raising himself from the 
materiality around him, he soared on the wings of contemplation 
to heights sublime, and wending his flight along the zodiac raised 
his head among the stars. The honors of the college became his 
meed, and departing thence with the blessings and the benedictions 
of his venerable instructor, he repaired for a short period to the 
school of Litchfield, and there imbibed those principles of the 
common law, based upon the rights of man, and throwing a cordon 
around the British and the American citizen. He left, and upon 
his return home was greeted by the glowing presence of his friends, 
who had heard from a distance the glad tidings of his studies and 
his success. He took at once his position among his neighbors. 
He was sent by them to the councils of the State ; and there, amid 
the glittering array of lofty intellects and ennobled characters, he 
became first among the first. 

But that sphere was too limited for the expansibility of a mind 
which seemed to know no limit but the good of all mankind. At 
the age of twenty-eight he was transferred to this Hall. He 
came not sii', to a bower of ease ; he came not in the moment of a 
sunshine of tranquillity ; he came when the country was disturbed 
by dissension from within, and pressed out by the great powers of 
Europe, then contending for the mastery of the world, and uniting 
3 



34 

and Iiarmonizing in this, and this alone — the destruction of 
American institutions, the annihilation of American trade. The 
whole country (boy as I then was, I well remember) seemed as if 
covered with an eternal gloom. The spirits of the best men seemed 
crushed amid that pressure, and the eye of hope scarce found con- 
solation in any prospect of the future. But he had not been long 
in these Halls, before he took the gauge and measurement of the 
depth of these calamities, and the compass of its breadth. He 
applied himself most vigorously to the application of the remedies 
to so vital a disease. He found that mistaken policy had added to 
the calamities on the ocean, that still further calamity of fettering, 
with a restrictive system, the very motions and energies of the 
people. He looked down and saw that there was a mighty pres- 
sure, a great weight upon the resources of this country, which time 
had gradually increased, and he resolved at once, with that resolu- 
tion which characterized him — with that energy which impelled 
him direct to his purpose — to advise what was considered a remedy 
too great almost for the advice of any other — once, weak as we 
were in numbers, unprepared as we were in arms, diminished as 
were our resources, to bid defiance to Britain, and assume the 
attitude of a conflicting nation for its rights. 

Fortunately for the country that advice was taken, and then the 
great spu-it of America, released from her shackles, burst up, and 
made her leave her incumbent, prostrate condition, and stand erect 
laefore the people of the world, and shake her spear in bold 
defiance. In tliat war, his counsels contributed as much, I am 
informed, as those of any man, to its final success. At a period 
when our troops on the frontier, under the command of the 
Governor of New York, were about to retire from the line, and 
that Governor had written to Mr. Madison that he had exhausted 
his own credit, and the credit of all those whose resources he could 
command, and his means were exhausted, and, unless in a short 
period money was sent on to invigorate the troops, the war must 
end, and our country bow down to a victorious foe ; sir, upon that 
occasion, Mr. Madison became so disheartened that he assembled 
his counsellors, and asked for advice and aid, but advice and aid 
they had not to give. At length Mr. Dallas, the Secretary of the 
Treasury, said to Mr. Madison — you arc sick; retire to your 



35 

chamber ; leave the rest to us. I will send to the Capitol for the 
youthful Hercules, who hitherto has borne the war upon his 
shoulders, and he will counsel us a remedy. Mr. Calhoun came. 
He ad^^sed an appeal to the States for the loan of their credit. It 
seemed as if a new light had burst upon the Cabinet. His advice 
was taken. The States generously responded to the appeal. These 
were times of fearful import. We were engaged in war with a 
nation whose resources were ample, while ours were crippled. Our 
ships of war, few in number, were compelled to go forth on the 
broad bosom of the deep, to encounter those fleets which had sig- 
nalized themselves at the battles of Aboukir and Trafalgar, and 
annihilated the combined navies of France and Spain. But there 
was an inward strength — there was an undying confidence — in 
the hearts of a free people ; and they went forth to battle and to 
conquest 

Sii', the clang of arms, and the shouts of victory, had scarcely 
died along the dark waters of the Niagara — the war upon the 
plains of Orleans had just gone out with a blaze of glory — when 
all eyes were instinctively turned to this youthful patriot, who had 
rescued his country in the dark hour of her peril. Mr. Monroe 
transferred him to his Cabinet ; and upon that occasion, so confused 
was the Department of War, so complicated and disordered, that 
Mr. William Lowndes, a friend to Mr. Calhoun, advised him 
against risking the high honors he had achieved upon this floor, 
for the uncertain victories of an Executive position. But no man 
had pondered more thoroughly the depths of his own mind, and 
the purposes of his own heart — none knew so well the undaunted 
resolution and energy that always characterized him ; and he 
resolved to accept, and did. He related to me what was extremely 
characteristic ; he went into the Department, but became not of it 
for a while. He gave no directions — he let the machinery move 
on by its own impetus. In the mean time he gathered, with that 
minuteness which characterized him, all the facts connected with 
the working of the machinery — with that power of generaliza- 
tion which was so remarkable, combined together in one sj^stem 
all the detached parts, instituted the bureaus, imparting individual 
responsibility to each, and reqixiring from them that responsibility 
in turn, but uniting them all in beautiful harmony, and creating 



36 



in tlie workings a perfect unity. And so complete did that work 
come from his hands, that at this time there has been no change 
material in this Department. It has passed through the ordeal of 
another war, and it still remains fresh, and without symptoms of 
decay. He knew that if we were to have wars, we should have 
the science to conduct them ; and be therefore directed his atten- 
tion to West Point, which, fostered by his care, became the great 
school of tactics and of military discipline, the benefits of which 
have so lately been experienced in the Mexican campaign. 

But, sir, having finished this work, his mind instinctively looked 
for some other gi-eat object on which to exercise its powers. He 
beheld the Indian tribes, broken down by the pressure and the 
advances of civilization, wasting away before the vices, and ac- 
quiring none of the virtues, of the white man. His heart expanded 
with a philanthropy as extensive as the human race. He imme- 
diately conceived the project of collecting them into one nation, 
of transferring them to the other side of the great river, and freeing 
them at once from the temptations and the cupidity of the Christian 
man. 

Sir, he did not remain in office to accomplish this great object. 
But he had laid its foundation so deep, he had spread out his plans 
so broad, that he has reared to himself, in the establishment of 
that people, a brighter monument, more glorious trophies, than can 
be plucked upon the plains of war. The triumphs of war are 
marked by desolated towns and conflagrated fields ; his triumphs 
will be seen in the collection of the Indian tribes, constituting a 
confederation among themselves, in the school-houses in the valleys, 
in the churches that rise with their spires from the hill top, in the 
clear sunshine of Heaven. The music of that triumph is not heard 
in the clangor of the trumpet, and the rolling of the drum, but 
swells from the clang of the anvil, and the tones of the water- 
wheel, and the cadence of the mill-stream, that rolls down for the 
benefit of the poor red man. 

Sir, he paused not in his career of usefulness; he was trans- 
ferred, by the votes of a gi-ateful peoiDle, to the chair of the second 
ofiice of the Government. There he presided with a firmness, an 
impartiality, with a gentleness, with a dignity, that all admired. 
And yet it is not given unto man to pass unscathed the fiery fur- 



37 

nace of tMs world. While presiding over that body of ambassadors 
from sovereign States, while regulating their councils, the tongue 
of calumny assailed him, and accused him of ofl&cial corruption in 
the Rip Rap contract. Indignantly he left the Chair, demanded 
of the Senators an immediate investigation by a committee, and 
came out of the fire like gold refined in the furnace. From that 
time to the day that terminated his life, no man dared to breathe 
aught against the spotless purity of his character. 

But, while in that chair, Mr. Calhoun perceived that there was 
arising a great and mighty influence to over-shadow a portion of 
this land. From a patriotic devotion to his country he consented, 
on this floor, in 1816, upon the reduction of the war duties, to a 
gradual diminution of the burdens, and thus saved the manufac- 
turers from annihilation. But that interest, then a mere stripling, 
weak, and requiring nurture, fostered by this aliment, soon increased 
in strength, and became potent, growing with a giant's growth, 
and attained a giant's might, and was inclined tyrannously to use 
it as a giant. He at once resigned his seat, gave up his dignified 
position, mingled in the strifes of the arena, sounded the tocsin of 
alarm, waked up the attention of the South, himself no less active 
than those whom he thus aroused, and at length advised his own 
State, heedless of danger, to throw herself into the breach for the 
protection of that sacred Constitution, whose every precept he had 
imbibed, whose every condition he had admired. Sir, although 
hostile fleets floated in our waters, and armies threatened our cities, 
he quailed not ; and at length the pleasing realization came to him, 
and to the country, like balm to the wounded feelings, and by a 
generous compromise on all parts, the people of the South were 
freed from onerous taxation, and the North yet left to enjoy the 
fruits of her industry, and to progress in her glorious advancement 
in all that is virtuous in industry, and elevated in sentiment. 

But he limited not his scope to our domestic horizon. He looked 
abroad at our relations with the nations. He saw our increase of 
strength. He measured our resources, and was willing at once to 
settle all our difficulties with foreign powers on a permanent basis. 
With Britain we had causes of contention, of deep and long 
standing. He resolved, if the powers of his intellect could avail 
aught before he departed hence, that these questions should be 



settled, for a nation's honor and a nation's safety. He faltered not. 
I know (for I was present) that when the Ashburton treaty was 
about to be made — when there were apprehensions in the Cabinet 
that it would not be sanctioned by the Senate — a member of that 
Cabinet called to consult Mr. Calhoun, and to ask if he would give 
it liis generous support. The reply of Mr. Calhoun at that 
moment was eminently satisfactory, and its annunciation to the 
Cabinet gave assurance to the distinguished Secretary of State, 
who so eminently had conducted this important negotiation. He 
at once considered the work as finished; for it is the union of 
action in the intellectual, as in the physical, world, that moves the 
spheres into harmony. 

When the treaty was before the Senate, it was considered in 
secret session ; and I never shall forget, that sitting upon yonder 
side of the House, the colleague of Mr. Calhoun — who at that 
time was not on social terms with him — my friend, the honorable 
Mr. Preston, whose heart throbbed with an enthusiastic love of all 
that is elevated — left his seat in the Senate, and came to my seat 
in the House, saying, "I must give vent to my feelings; Mr. 
Calhoun has made a speech which has settled the question of the 
Northeastern boundary. All his friends — nay, all the Senators — 
have collected around to congratulate him, and I have come out to 
express my emotions, and declare that he has covered himself with 
a mantle of glory." 

Sh*, after a while he retired from Congress ; but the unfortunate 
accident on board the Princeton, which deprived Virginia of two 
of her most gifted sons, members of the Cabinet, immediately sug- 
gested the recall of Mr. Calhoun from his retirement in private 
life, and the shades of his own domicil, to aid the country in a 
great exigency. His nomination as Secretary of State was sent to 
the Senate, and, without reference to a committee, was unanimously 
confu-med. Sir, when he arrived here, he perceived that the 
Southern country was in imminent peril, and that the arts and 
intrigues of Great Britain were about to wrest from us that imperial 
territory which is now the State of Texas. By his wisdom, and 
the exercise of his great administrative talents, the intrigues of 
Great Britain were defeated, and that portion of the sunny South 
was soon annexed to this Kepublic. 



39 



"With the commencement of Mr. Polk's administration he retired 
once more from jiublic life, but he retired voluntarily. IMr. 
Buchanan (for I might as well relate the fact) called upon me, 
took mc to the embrasure of one of those windows, and said : " I 
am to be Secretary of State ; the President appreciates the high 
talents of Mr. Caluoun, and considers the country now encircled 
by danger upon the Oregon question. Go to Mr. Calhoun, and 
tender to him the mission to the Court of St. James — special or 
general, as he may determine — with a transfer of the Oregon 
question entirely to his charge." 

Never can I forget how the muscles of his face became tense, 
how his great eye rolled, as he received the terms of the proposal. 
" No, sir — no, (he replied.) If the embassies of all Europe were 
clustered into one, I would not take it at this time ; my country is 
in danger; here ought to be the negotiation, and here will I 
stand." Sir, he retired to his farm ; but the President, in his 
inaugural, had indicated so strongly his assertion of the entirety 
of the Oregon treaty ; had inspirited the people of the West almost 
to madness, and in like manner had dispirited the merchants of the 
East, and of the North and South, that a presentiment of great 
dangers stole over the hearts of the people, and a war seemed 
inevitable, with the greatest naval jDOwer of the earth. Impelled 
by their apprehensions, the merchants sent a message to Mr. Cal- 
houn, and begged him again to return to the councils of the nation. 
His predecessor generously resigned. He came, and when he 
came, though late, he beheld dismay on the countenances of all. 
There was a triumphant majority in both parts of this Capitol of 
the Democratic party, who, with a few exceptions, were for carry- 
ing out the measures of Mr. Polk. The Whigs, finding that they 
were too few to stem the current, refused to breast themselves to 
the shock. But when Mr. Calhoun announced on the floor of the 
Senate, the day after his arrival, his firm determination to resist 
and save from the madness of the hour this great country, they 
immediately rallied, and soon his friends in this House, and in the 
Senate, gathered around him, and the country was safe. Reason 
triumphed, and the Republic was relieved of the calamities of a 
war. This was the last great work he ever consummated. 



40 

But he saw other evils ; he beheld this Republic about to lose 
its poise from a derangement of its weights and levers ; he was 
anxious to adjust the balance, and to restore the equilibrium ; he 
exercised his mind for that purpose; he loved this Union, for I 
have often heard him breathe out that love ; he loved the equality 
of the States, because he knew that upon that equality rested the 
stability of the Government; he admired that compact — the Con- 
stitution of our fathers — and esteemed it as a great covenant 
between sovereign States, which, if properly observed, would make 
us the chosen people of the world. 

At length the acting of the spirit chafed the frail tenement of 
mortality, and, to the eye of his friends, the tide of life began to 
ebb; but, sir, with an undying confidence in his powers — with a 
consciousness of the dangers which encircled his physical nature, 
but without regard to his own sufferings, in the solitudes of dis- 
ease, unable in the midst of disease even to hold a pen, he dictated 
his last great speech. That speech has gone forth to the world, and 
the judgment of that world will now impartially be stamped upon it. 

Sir, when his health began gradually to recover, his spirit 
impelled him, against the advice of his friends, into the Senate 
chamber ; and there, with a manliness of purpose, with a decision 
of tone, with a clearness of argument, with a rapidity of thought, 
he met and overthrew his antagonists, one by one, as they came 
up to the attack. But weakened by the strife, although he retired 
victorious and encircled with a laurel wreath, he fell exhausted by 
his own efforts, and soon expired on the plains. And now where 
is he ? Dead, dead, sir ; lost to his country and his friends. 

" For him no more tlie blazing heartli shall burn, 
Xor wife nor ciiildrcn more shall he behold," 



nor sacred home. But he shall shortly rest amid his own native 
hills, witli no dirge but the rude music of the winds, and, after 
a while, no tears to moisten his grave but the dews of Heaven. 

But though dead, he still liveth ; he liveth in the hearts of his 
friends, in the memory of his services, in the respect of the 
States, in tlie affections, the devoted affections, of that household 
he cherished. He will live in the tomes of time, as they shall 
unfold their pages, rich with virtues, to the eyes of the yet unborn. 



41 

He lives, and will continue to live, for countless ages, in the 
advance of that science to which, by his intellect, he so much con- 
tributed, in the disenthralment of man from the restrictions of 
government, in the freedom of intercourse of nations, and kindreds, 
and tongues, which makes our common mother earth throw from 
her lap her bounteous plenty unto all her children. And it may 
be, that with the example set to other nations, there shall arise a 
union of thought and sentiment, and that the strong ties of interest, 
and the silken cords of love, may unite the hearts of all, until, 
from the continents and the isles of the sea, there will come up the 
gratulations of voices that shall mingle with the choral song of the 
angelic host — "Peace on earth; good will to all mankind.',' 
I move, sir, the adoption of the following resolutions : — 

Resolved, That this House has heard, with deep sensibility, the announcement of the 
death of the Hon. John C. Calhoun, a Senator from the State of South Carohna. 

Resolved, That, as a testimony of respect for tlie memory of the deceased, the members 
and officers of this House will wear the usu:il badge of mourning for thirty days. 

Resolved, That the proceedings of this House, in relation to tlie deatli of tlie Hon. John 
C. Calhodn, be communicated to tlie family of the deceased by the Clerk. 

Resolved, That tliis House will attend the funeral of the deceased in a body; and as a 
furtlier mark of respect for liis memory, that it do now adjourn. 



Mr. WINTHPv.OP rose to second the resolutions offered by Mr. Holmes , 
and proceeded as follows : — 

I am not unaware, Mr. Speaker, that the voice of New England 
has already been heard to-day, in its most authentic and most 
impressive tones, in the other wing of this Capitol. But it has 
been suggested to me, and the suggestion has met with the promptest 
assent from my own heart, that here, also, that voice should not 
be altogether mute on this occasion. 

The distinguished person, whose death has been announced to 
us in the resolutions of the Senate, belonged, not indeed, to us. 
It is not ours to pronounce his eulogy. It is not ours, certainly, 
to appropriate his fame. But it is ours to bear witness to his 
character, to do justice to his virtues, to unite in paying honor to 
his memory, and to offer our heart-felt sympathies, as I now do, to 
those who have been called to sustain so great a bereavement. 

We have been told, sir, by more than one adventurous navigator, 
that it was worth all the privations and perils of a protracted 
voyage beyond the line, to obtain even a passing view of the 



42 

Southern Cross — that great constellation of tlie Southern hemis- 
phere. We can imagine, then, what would be the emotions of 
those who have always enjoyed the light of that magnificent 
luminary, and who have taken their daily and their nightly direc- 
tion from its refulgent rays, if it were suddenly blotted out from 
the sky. 

Such, sir, and so deep, I can conceive to be the emotions at 
this hour, of not a few of the honored friends and associates whom 
I see around me. 

Indeed, no one who has been ever so distant an observer of the 
course of public affairs, for a quarter of a century past, can fail to 
realize that a star of the first magnitude has been struck from our 
political firmament. Let us hope, sir, that it has only been trans- 
ferred to a higher and purer sphere, where it may shine on with 
undimmed brilliancy forever ! 

Ml*. Speaker, it is for others to enter into the details of Mr. 
Calhoun's life and services. It is for others to illustrate and to 
vindicate his peculiar opinions and principles. It is for me to 
speak of him only as he was known to the country at large, and 
to all, without distinction of party, who have represented the 
country of late years in either branch of the national councUs. 

And speaking of him thus, sir, I cannot hesitate to say, that, 
among what may be caUed the second generation of American 
statesmen, since the adoption of the Federal Constitution, there 
has been no man of a more marked character, of more pronounced 
qualities, or of a wider and more deserved distinction. 

The mere length and variety of his public service, in almost 
every branch of the National Government, running through a con- 
tinuous period of almost forty years — as a member of this House, 
as Secretary of War, as Vice President of the United States, as 
Secretary of State, and as Senator from his own adored and adoring 
South Carolina — would alone have secured him a conspicuous and 
permanent place upon our public records. 

But he has left better titles to remembrance than any which 
mere office can bestow. 

There was an unsullied purity in his private life ; there was an 
inflexible integrity in his public conduct ; there was an indescriba- 
ble fascination in his familiar conversation ; there was a condensed 



43 

energy in his formal discourse ; there was a quickness of percep- 
tion, a yigor of deduction, a directness, and a devotedness of 
purpose, in all that he said, or wrote, or did ; there was a Eomau 
dignity in his whole Senatorial deportment; which, together, made 
up a character which cannot fail to be contemplated and admired 
to the latest posterity. 

I have said, sir, that New England can appropriate no part f>f 
his fame. But we may he permitted to remember, that it was in 
our schools of learning and of law that he was trained up for the 
e-reat contests which awaited him in the forum of the Senate 
chamber. Nor can we forget how long, and how intimately, he 
was associated in the executive or deliberative branches of the 
Government, with more than one of our own most cherished 
statesmen. 

The loss of such a man, sir, creates a sensible gap in the public 
councils. To the State which he represented, and the section of 
country with which he was so peculiarly identified, no stranger 
tongue may venture to attempt words of adequate consolation. 
But let us hope that the event may not be without a wholesome 
and healing influence upon the troubles of the times. Let us heed 
the voice, which comes to us all, both as individuals and as public 
officers, in so solemn and signal a providence of God. Let us 
remember that, whatever happens to the Eepublic, we must die ! 
Let us reflect how vain are the personal strifes and partisan con- 
tests in which we daily engage, in view of the great account which 
we may so soon be called on to render ! As Cicero exclaimed, in 
considering the death of Crassus : " fallacem liominum spem, 
frarjilem que fortunam, et inanes nostras contentiones." 

Finally, sir, let us find fresh bonds of brotherhood and of union 
in the cherished memories of those who have gone before us ; and 
let VIS resolve that, so far as in us lies, the day shall never come 
when New England men may not speak of the great names of the 
South, whether among the dead or among the living, as of Ameri- 
cans and fellow countrymen ! 

Mr. VENABLE rose and said : — 
Mr. Speaker : In responding to the announcement just made by 
the gentleman from South Carolina, (Mr. Holmes,) I perform a sad 



44 

and melancholy office. Did I consult my feelings alone, I would 
be silent. In the other end of this building we have just heard 
the touching eloquence of two venerable and distinguished Sena- 
tors, his cotemporaries and compatriots. Their names belong to 
their country as well as his ; and I thought, while each was speak- 
ing, of the valiant warrior, clothed in armor, Avho, when passing 
the grave of one with whom he had broken lances and crossed 
weapons, dropped a tear upon his dust, and gave testimony to his 
skill, his valor, and his honor. He whose spii'it has fled needs no 
effort of mine to place his name on the bright page of history, nor 
would any eulogy which I might pronounce swell the vast tide of 
praises which will flow jjerennially from a nation's gratitude. The 
great American statesman who has fallen by the stroke of death, 
has left the impress of his mind upon the generations among whom 
he lived — has given to posterity the mines of his recorded thoughts 
to reward their labor with intellectual wealth — has left an example 
of purity and patriotism on which the wearied eye may rest — 

" And gaze upon the great, 
Where neitJier guilty glory glows, 
Nor despicable state." 

For more than forty years his name is conspicuous in our history. 
Born at the close of the Revolutionary war, he was in full maturity 
to guide the councils of his country in our second contest with 
England. Never unmindful of her claims upon him, he has de- 
voted a long life to her service, and has closed it, like a gallant 
warrior, with his armor buckled on him. " Death made no con- 
quest of this conqueror ; for now he lives in fame, though not in 
life." The only fame, sir, which he ever coveted — an impulse to 
great and honorable deeds — a fame which none can despise who 
have not renounced the virtues which deserve it. It is at least 
some relief to our hearts, now hea^^ug with sighs at this dispensa- 
tion of Heaven, that he now belongs to bright, to enduring history ; 
for his was one of " the few, the immortal names that were not 
born to die." Of his early history the gentleman who preceded 
me has spoken ; of his illustrious life I need not speak ; it is known 
to millions now living, and will be familiar to the world in after 
times. 



45 

But, sir, I propose to say something of hiin in his last days. 
Early in tho winter of 1848-9, his failing health gave uneasiness 
to his friends. A severe attack of bronchitis, complicated with an 
affection of the heart, disqualified him for the performance of his 
Senatorial duties, with the punctuality which always distinguished 
him. It was then that I became intimately acquainted with his 
mind, and, above all, with his heart. Watching by his bedside, 
and during his recovery, I ceased to be astonished at the power 
which his master-mind and elevated moral feelings had always 
exerted upon those who were included within the circle of his 
social intercourse. It was a tribute paid spontaneously to wisdom, 
genius, truth. Patriotism, honesty of purpose, and purity of 
motive, rendered active by the energies of such an intellect as 
hardly ever falls to any man, gathered around him sincere admirers 
and devoted friends. That many have failed to appreciate the 
value of the great truths which he uttered, or to listen to the warn- 
ings which he gave, is nothing new in the history of great minds. 
Bacon wrote for posterity, and men of profound sagacity always 
think in advance of their generation. His body was sinking under 
the invasion of disease before I formed his acquaintance, and he 
was passing from among us before I was honored with his friend- 
ship. I witnessed with astonishment the influence of his mighty 
mind over his weak physical structure. Like a powerful steam- 
engine on a frail bark, every revolution of the wheel tried its 
capacity for endurance to the utmost. But yet his mind moved 
on, and, as if insensible to the decay of bodily strength, put forth, 
without stint, his unequalled powers of thought and analysis, until 
nature well-nigh sunk under the imposition. His intellect pre- 
served its vigor while his body was sinking to decay. The men- 
struum retained its powers of solution, while the frail crucible 
which contained it was crumbling to atoms. During his late illness, 
which, with a short intermission, has continued since the com- 
mencement of this session of Congress, there was no abatement of 
his intellectual labors. They were directed, as Avell to the momen- 
tous questions now agitating the public mind, as to the completion 
of a work which imbodies his thoughts on the subject of govern- 
ment in general, and our own Constitution in particular; thus 



46 

distinguishing his last days by the greatest effort of his mind, and 
bequeathing it as his richest legacy to posterity. 

Cheerful in a sick chamber, none of the gloom which usually 
attends the progress of disease annoyed him ; severe in ascertaining 
the truth of conclusions, because unwilling to be deceived himself, 
he scorned to deceive others; skilful in appreciating the past, and 
impartial in his judgment of the present, he looked to the future 
as dependant on existing causes, and fearlessly gave utterance to 
his opinions of its nature and character ; the philosopher and the 
statesman, he discarded expedients by which men " construe the 
times to their necessities." He loved the truth for the truth's 
sake, and believed that to temporize is but to increase the evil 
which we seek to remove. The approach of death brought no 
indication of impatience — no cloud upon his intellect. To a friend 
who spoke of the time and manner in which it was best to meet 
death, he remarked : " I have but little concern about either ; I 
desire to die in the discharge of my duty; I have an unshaken 
reliance upon the providence of Gt)d." 

I saw him four days after his last appearance in the Senate 
chamber, gradually sinking under the power of his malady, with- 
out one murmur at his affliction, always anxious for the interest of 
his country, deeply absorbed in the great question which agitates 
the public mind, and earnestly desiring its honorable adjustment, 
unchanged in the opinions which he had held and uttered for many 
years, the ardent friend of the Union and the Constitution, and 
seeking the perpetuity of our institutions, by inculcating the prac- 
tice of justice and the duties of patriotism. 

Aggravated symptoms, on the day before his death, gave notice 
of his approaching end. I left him late at night, with but faint 
hopes of amendment; and, on being summoned early the next 
morning, I found him sinking in the cold embrace of death ; calm, 
collected, and conscious of his situation, but without any symptom 
of alarm, his face beaming with intelligence, without one indication 
of suffering or of pain. I watched his countenance, and the lustre 
of that bright eye remained unchanged, until the silver cord was 
broken, and then it went out in instantaneous eclipse. When I 
removed my hand from closing his eyes, he seemed as one who had 
fallen into a sweet and refreshing slumber. 



47 



Thus, sir, closed the days of John Caldwell Calhoun, the 
illustrious American statesman. His life and services shall sjieak 
of the greatness of by-gone days with undying testimony. Another 
jewel has fallen from our crown ; an inscrutable Providence has 
removed from among us one of the great lights of the age. But 
it is not extinguished. From a height, to which the shafts of 
malice or the darts of detraction never reach, to which envy cannot 
crawl, or jealousy approach, it will shine brighter and more glo- 
riously, sending its rays over a more extended horizon, and blessing 
mankind by its illumination. The friend of constitutional liberty 
will go to his writings for truth, and to his life for a model. We, 
too, should be instructed by his experience, whUe his presages for 
the future should infuse caution into om* counsels, and prudence 
into our actions. His voice, now no more heard in the Senate, 
wUl speak most potentially from the grave. Personal opposition 
has died with his death. The aspiring cannot fear him, nor the 
ambitious dread his elevation. His life has become history, and 
his thoughts the property of his countrymen. 

Sir, while we weep over his grave, let us be consoled by the 
assurance " that honor decks the turf that wraps his clay." He 
was our own, and his fame is also ours. Let us imitate his great 
example, in preferring truth and duty to the approbation of men, 
or the triumphs of party. Be wdling to stand alone for the right, 
nor surrender independence for any inducement. He was brought 
up in the society of the men of the Revolution, saw the work of 
our Constitution since its formation, was profoundly skilled in con- 
struing its meaning, and sought, by his wisdom and integrity, to 
give permanency to the Government which it created. If such 
high purposes be ours, then our sun, like his, will go down 
serenely, and we shall have secured " a peace above all other dig- 
nities — a calm and quiet conscience." 

The question was then taken on the resolutions offered by Mr. 
Holmes, and they were unanimously agreed to. 

And thereupon the House adjourned. 



APPENDIX. 



-*♦•- 



PROGRAMME OF PROCEEDINGS IN WASHINGTON ON THE 
REMOVAL OF THE REMAINS OF MR. CALHOUN. 

The remains of Mr. Calhoun will be brought to the Capitol in 
a hearse, by eight o'clock, a. m., in the morning of Monday, the 
22d instant, in charge of the Sergeant-at-Arms, and will so remain 
in his charge, and with those assistants present who are to accom- 
pany it to the South. They will be at the Eastern front. 

Carriages will be sent for the committee of the Senate, and Mr. 
Venable and Mr. Holmes, of South Carolina, their guests, and for 
the committee from South Carolina, to their respective lodgings, 
to be there jyunctually at half -past seven. They will rendezvous 
at the Eastern front of the Capitol; and at eight o'clock punc- 
tually, a baggage-wagon, in charge of a messenger, will convey 
the baggage of the South Carolina committee, and have it on board 
before the procession arrives. 

The body, in charge of the Sergeant-at-Arms, with his assistants, 
and the committee, will leave the Capitol at eight o'clock, punc- 
tually, and proceed to the mail boat, passing on the southern side 
of Capitol Hill, and along Maryland Avenue. 

The Sergeant-at-Arms will communicate a copy of this to Daniel 
Ravenel, Esq., chairman of the committee for South Carolina, and 
to Mr. Venable and Mr. Holmes. 

(Signed) JAMES M. MASON. 



[Along the line of route, at Fredericksburg, Richmond, and 
Petersburg, Virginia, and at Wilmington, North Carolina, the 
remains of the departed statesman were received with the most 
profound respect.] 



50 

HONORS AT CHARLESTON, S. C, ON THE RECEPTION OF THE 
REMAINS OF MR. CALHOUN. 

The boom of the signal gun over the waters of Charleston 
harbor, on the morning of the 25th of April, 1850, announced that 
the mortal remains of Carolina's great statesman were approaching 
their native shores, to receive the last honors of a mourning people. 
At twelve, meridian, the steamer Nina, bearing the body, touched 
Smith's wharf; on board were the committee of the United States 
Senate and House of Representatives, the Sergeant-at-Arms of the 
Senate, the committee of citizens from Wilmington, North Caro- 
lina, the committee of Twenty-five from South Carolina, and the 
sub-committee of arrangements. The revenue cutter Gallatin, the 
steamers IMetamora and Pilot, acting as an escort, with colors at 
half mast and draped in mourning, lay in her wake. Profound 
silence reigned around — no idle spectator loitered on the spot — 
the curiosity incident to the hour was merged into a deep feeling 
of respect, that evinced itself by being present only where that 
sentiment could with most propriety be displayed. The solemn 
minute gun — the wail of the distant bell, the far oif spires 
shrouded in the drapery of grief — the hearse and its attendant 
mourners waiting on the spot, alone bore witness that the pulse of 
life still beat within the city — that a whole people in voiceless 
woe were about to receive and consign to earth all that was mortal 
of a great and good citizen. 

The arrangements for landing having been made, the Committee 
of Reception advanced, and, through its chairman, tendered a wel- 
come, and the hospitalities of the city, to the committee of citizens 
from Wilmington, North Carolina, to which the chairman of that 
committee feelingly responded. The body, enclosed in an iron case, 
2)artially shaped to the form, was then borne by the Guard of 
Honor (clad in deep mourning, with white silk scarfs across the 
shoulder) from the boat to the magnificent funeral car drawn up 
to receive it ; the pall, prepared of black velvet, edged with heavy 
silk fringe, and enflounced in silver, with the escutcheon of the 
State of South Carolina in the centre and four corners, was spread 
over it. The pall-bearers, composed of twelve ex-Governors and 
Lieutenant Governors of the State, arranged themselves at the 



51 

sides of the car, the procession advanced, preceded by a military 
escort of three companies — the German Fusiliers, Washington 
Light Infantry, and Marion Artillery — under the command of Cap- 
tain Manigault. The various committees and family of the deceased 
followed in carriages, the drivers and footmen clad in mouming, 
with hat-bands and scarfs of white crape. In this order the funeral 
train slowly moved forward, to the sound of muffled drums, to the 
Citadel -square, the place assigned in the arrangements made, where 
the committee from the Senate of the United States would sur- 
render the remains under their charge to the Executive of South 
Carolina, and the funeral procession proceed to the City Hall. 

At the Citadel a most imposing spectacle was presented. The 
entire front and battlements were draped in mourning, and its 
wide portal heavily hung with black; the spacious area on the 
South was densely filled with the whole military force of the city, 
drawn up in proper array; at different points, respectively assigned 
them, stood the various orders of Free Masons, the Independent 
Order of Odd Fellows, the Sons of Temperance, the Order of 
Rechabites, in their rich regalia, the difi"erent Fire Companies in 
uniform, the various Societies and Associations ; the pupils of 
public and private schools, with their tutors, bearing banners in- 
scribed with the names of the several States of the Confederacy, 
their arms, and mottoes ; the Seamen, with their pastor, the Rev. 
Mr. Yates, bearing a banner with this inscription, " The children 
of Old Ocean mourn for him," and citizens on horse and foot. 
The most perfect order prevailed; no sound was heard, but the 
subdued murmur of the collected thousands. At the appointed 
hour the funeral car slowly entered the grounds from the east, and 
halted before the gates of the Citadel ; the hush of death brooded 
over all as the hearse, towering aloft its mourning curtains waving 
in air, revealed to the assembled multitude the sarcophagus reposing 
within. 

In the centre of the square, and directly fronting the gates of 
the Citadel, stood the Governor of the State, attended by the mem- 
bers of the Senate and House of Representatives, and the delegates 
from difierent sections of the State. On the right the Mayor and 
Aldermen of the city, habited in deep mourning, their wands of 
office bound with crape ; on the left, the reverend the clergy, of all 



52 

denominations. In front of the funeral car were arranged the 
various committees, who had attended the removal of the remains 
from the seat of Government; at the proper moment they slowly 
advanced, with heads uncovered, preceded by the Sergeant-at-Arms 
of the United States Senate, with his golden rod, to the spot 
occupied by the Governor and suite. Alderman Banks, chair- 
man of the Committee of Reception, stood forth, and announced to 
the Governor the presence of the Hon. Mr. Mason, chairman of 
the Senate's committee, who, with a manner deeply solemn and 
impressive, thus surrendered his sacred trust : — 



" Governor Seabrook : 

" The Senate of the United States, by its order, ha.s deputed a 
committee of six Senators to bring back the remains of their 
colleague, your illustrious statesman, John Caldwell Calhoun, to 
his native State. He fell in the fullness of his fame, without stain 
or blot, without fear, and without reproach, a martyr to the great 
and holy cause to which his life had been devoted — the safety and 
equality of the Southern States in their Federal alliance. 

" It is no disparagement to your State or her people, to say their 
loss is irreparable, for Calhoun was a man of a century ; but to 
the entire South, the absence of his counsels can scarcely be sup- 
plied. With a judgment stern, with decided and indomitable 
purpose, there was united a political and moral purity, that threw 
around him an atmosphere which nothing unholy could breathe 
and yet live. But, bir, I am not sent here to eulogize your honored 
dead ; that has been already done in the Senate House, with the 
memories of his recent triumphs there clustering around us, and 
by those far abler than I. It is our melancholy duty only, which 
I have performed on behalf of the committee of the Senate, to 
surrender all that remains of him on earth to the State of South 
Carolina ; and, having done this, our mission is ended. We shall 
return to our duties in the Senate, aud those performed, to our 
separate and distant homes, bearing with us the treasured memory 
of his exalted worth, and the gi-eat example of his devoted and 
patriotic life." 



53 



Mr. Masox having concluded, Governor Seabrook responded: 

" I receive, Mr. Chairman, with the deepest emotions, the mortal 
remains of him for whom South Carolina entertained an unljounded 
aifection Implicitly relying on the faithful exercise of his great 
moral and intellectual endowments, on no occasion, for a period of 
about forty years, which constituted indeed his whole political life, 
did her confidence in him suffer the slightest abatement. Although 
the spirit that animated its tenement of clay now inhabits another 
and a purer mansion, yet the name of John Caldwell Calhoun 
will live while time shall be permitted to endure. That name is 
printed in indelible characters on the hearts of those whose feel- 
ings and opinions he so truly reflected, and will forever be fondly 
cherished, not only by his own countrymen, but by every human 
being who is capable of appreciating the influence of a gigantic 
intellect, unceasingly incited by the dictates of wisdom, virtue, and 
patriotism. 

" In the name of the people of the State he so dearly loved, I 
tender, through you, to the Senate of the United States, their 
warmest acknowledgments, for the honors conferred by that dis- 
tinguished body on the memory of our illustrious statesman ; and, 
by this committee, I ask their acceptance of their heartfelt grati- 
tude, for the very kind and considerate manner in which, gentle- 
men, the melancholy yet honorable task assigned you has been 
executed. 

" The first of April, 1850, exhibited a scene in the Halls of the 
Federal Congress, remarkable for its moral sublimity. On that 
day, the North and the South, the East and the West, together 
harmoniously met at the altar consecrated to the noblest afiec- 
tions of our nature, and, moved by a common impulse, portrayed, 
in strains of fervid eloquence, before the assembled wisdom of the 
land, the character and services of him around whose bier we are 
assembled. To every member of the Senate and House of Repre- 
sentatives, whose voice was heard on that solemn occasion. South 
Carolina profiers the right hand of fellowship. 

" I trust it will not be considered a departure from the strictest 
rules of propriety, to say to an honorable member of Congress 
before me, that the Palmetto State owes him a debt of gratitude, 
which, at her bidding, and in obedience to my own feelings, I am 



54 



imperatively summoned at tliis time to liquidate in part. From 
the first day of Mr. Calhoun's protraxjted illness, to the moment 
when death achieved his victory, you, Mr. Venable, were rarely 
alisent from his bed side. "With the anxious solicitude of a devoted 
friend, you ministered to his wants, and watched the reflux of that 
noble stream whose fertilizing powers were about to be buried in 
the great ocean of eternity. For services so disinterested, spon- 
taneously bestowed by a stranger, I offer the tribute of thanks, 
warm, from overflowing hearts." 

Mr. Venable replied : — 

"The manner in which your excellency has been pleased to 
refer to the attention which I was enabled to bestow on our illus- 
trious friend, has deeply afiected my heart. It is but the repeated 
expression of the feelings of the people of Charleston, on the same 
subject, contained in a resolution which has reached me, and for 
which manifestation of kindness I now return to you, and to them, 
my most sincere and heartfelt thanks. Nothing has so fully con- 
vinced me of the extended popularity, I should rather say, feeling 
of veneration, towards the statesman whose death has called us 
together to-day, as the high estimate which you and your people 
have placed upon the services of an humble friend. Sir, the im- 
pulses of humanity would have demanded nothing less, and that 
man is more than rewarded, who is permitted to soothe the pain 
or alleviate the suffering of a philosopher, sage, patriot, and states- 
man, so exalted above his cotemporaries, that were we not admon- 
ished by his subjection to the invasion of disease and death, we 
might well doubt whether he did not belong to a superior race. 
To be even casually associated with his memory, in the gratitude 
of a State, is more than a reward for ■ any services which I could 
render him. 

" Sir, as his life was a chronicle of instructive events, so his death 
but furnished a commentary on that life. It is said of Hampden, 
when in the agonies of death, rendered most painful by the nature 
of his wound, that he exclaimed — ' God of my fathers, save, 
save my country I' thus breathing the desire of his soul on earth 
into the ^-estibule of the court of heaven. So our illustrious friend, 
but a few hours before his departure, employed the last effort in 



i 



55 



whicli lie was enabled to utter more than a single sentence, saying, 
'If I had my health and strength to devote one hour to my coixn- 
try in the Senate, I could do more than in my whole life.' lie is 
gone ! and when, in my passage here, I saw the manifestations of 
deep feeling, of heartfelt veneration, in Virginia and my own 
Carolina, I felt as one making a pilgrimage to the tomb of his 
father, whose sad heart was cheered by spontaneous testimonials 
of the merits of the one he loved and honored. But when, with 
this morning's dawn, I approached your harbor and saw the city 
in the peaceful rest of the Sabbath, heard not the stroke of a ham- 
mer, or the hum of voices engaged in the business of life ; when, 
from the deck of the steamer, in the midst of your harbor^ I could 
descry the habiliments of mourning which consecrated your houses ; 
the stillness — the solemn stillness — spoke a language that went 
to my heart. But when, added to this, I behold this vast multitude 
of mourners, I exclaim — ' A people's tears water the dust of one 
who loved and served them.' No military fame was his ; he never 
set a squadron in the field. The death of the civilian and pati'iot 
who loved his country, and his whole country, gave rise to this 
great demonstration of sorrow and regard. Permit me again to 
assure your excellency, and the people of Charleston, and of South 
Carolina, that I shall ever cherish, as one of the dearest recollec- 
tions of my life, the expressions of kindness which have been made 
to me as the friend and the companion, in the sick chamber of 
John C. Calhoun. His society and his friendship were more than 
a compensation for any attentions which any man could bestow. 
Such were his gifts, that whether in sickness or in health, no man 
retired from a conversation with him who was not greatly his 
debtor. By the courtesies of this day, and the association of my 
name with his, I am both his debtor and yours; the sincere ac- 
knowledgment of which I tender to your excellency, requesting 
that it may be received by you, both for yourself and the people 
whose sovereignty you represent." 



Gov. Seabrook now turned to the Hon. T. Leger Hutchinson, 
Mayor of the city, and said : — 

"3Ir. IMayor: I commit to your care these precious remains. 
After the solemn ceremonies of the day, I request that you put 



56 

over them a Guard of Honor, until the hour shall arrive to consign 
them to their temporary resting place." 

To which the Mayor replied : — 

" Governor Seabrook : As the organ of the corporation of the 
city of Charleston, I receive from you, with profound emotion, the 
mortal remains of John Caldwell Calhoun — a sacred trust, 
confided to us, to be retained until the desire of the people of 
South Carolina, expressed through their constituted authorities, 
shall be declared respecting their final resting place." 

The ceremony of the reception of the body from the hands of 
the Senatorial committee by the Executive of the State being over, 
the members constituting the civic and military portions of the 
solemn pageant were, with consummate skill, arranged in their 
respective positions by the Chief Marshal and his assistants. With 
order and precision each department fell into its allotted place, and 
the whole mass moved onward, a vast machine, obeying, with per- 
fect motion, the impulse given by the directing power. 

The gates opening from the Citadel square upon Boundary street, 
(the name since changed to Calhoun street,) through which the 
procession passed, were supported on each side by Palmetto trees, 
draped in mourning; from the branches which over-arched the 
gateway hung the escutcheon of the State ; between the folds of 
funeral cloth, in which it was enveloped, appeared the inscription — 
" Carolina mourns." 

The procession moved from the Citadel square down Boundary 
to King street, down King street to Hasell, through Hascll to 
Meeting street, down Meeting to South Bay Batteiy, along the 
Battery to East Bay, up East Bay to Broad street to the City Hall. 

Along the streets through which the procession passed, the 
public and private buildings and temples of worship were draped 
with mourning, the windows and doors of the houses were closed, 
and no one was seen to gaze upon the spectacle ; it seemed that 
those who did not participate directly in the obsequies were mourn- 
ing within. 

When the head of the escort reached the City Hall, it halted ; 
the troops formed into line on the south side of Broad street, facing 



57 



the City Hall. The funeral car, drawn by six horses, caparisoned 
in mourning trappings that touched the ground, each horse attended 
by a groom clad in black, slowly moved along the line until it 
reached the front steps of the City Hall. The division composing 
the procession then passed through the space intervening between 
the body and the military, with heads uncovered; the Marshals 
having the resjiective divisions in charge dismounted, and, leading 
their horses, proceeded to the points where the divisions were to be 
dismissed. When the last division had passed through, the body 
was then removed from the funeral car by the Guard of Honor, 
borne up the steps, and received at the threshold of the City Hall 
by the Mayor and Aldermen ; it was then deposited within the 
magnificent catafalque prepared for its reception. 

Here the body remained in state until the next day, under the 
special charge of the Honorary Guard of two hundred citizens, 
who kept watch at intervals during the day and night. Thousands 
of citizens and strangers of all sexes, ages, and conditions in life, 
repaired to the City Hall to pay their tribute of respect to the 
illustrious dead ; the most perfect propriety and decorum prevailed ; 
the incessant stream of visiters entered by the main doors, passed 
upward to the catafalque, ascended, gazed upon the sarcophagus 
resting within, and in silence I'etired through the passage in the 
rear. The iron case that enshrined the body, and the tomb-shaped 
structure npon which it lay, were covered with flowers, the offer- 
ings of that gentler sex, who in sorrow had lingered around its 
precincts. 

The ceremonies of the day completed, the various deputations 
and committees of this and other States, who had repaired to the 
city in performance of the mournful duties assigned them, were 
invited to the Council Chamber, where the hospitalities of the city 
were tendered by the municipal authorities ; they were afterwards 
escorted to the lodgings provided for them by the committees ap- 
pointed for the purpose. The committee from the Senate and 
House of Representatives of the United States repaired to the 
head-quarters of his excellency Governor Seabrook, where they 
were received and entertained as the guests of South Carolina 
during their stay. 



58 

The next clay, the 26th of April, was ai^jDointed for the rcDioval 
of the remains to the tomb. At early dawn the bells resumed 
their toll ; business remained suspended, and all the evidences of 
public mourning were continued. 

At ten o'clock a civic procession, under the direction of the 
marshals, having been formed, the body was then removed from 
the catafalque in the City Hall, and borne on a bier by the Guard 
of Honor to St. Philip's church; on reaching the church, which 
was draped in deepest mourning, the cortege proceeded up the 
centre aisle to a stand covered with black velvet, upon which the 
bier was deposited. After an anthem sung by a full choir, the 
Right Rev. Dr. Gadsden, Bishop of the Diocese, with great feeling 
and solemnity, read the burial service, to which succeeded an elo- 
quent funeral discourse by the Rev. Mr. Miles. The Holy rites 
ended, the body was again borne by the Guard of Honor to the 
western cemetery of the church, to the tomb erected for its tempo- 
rary abode, a solid structure of masonry raised above the surface, 
and lined with cedar wood. Near by, pendent from the tall spar 
that supported it, drooped the flag of the Union, its folds mourn- 
fully sweeping the verge of the tomb, as swayed by the passing 
wind. Wrapped in the pall that first covered it on reaching 
the shores of Carolina, the iron coffin, with its sacred trust, was 
lowered to its resting place, and the massive marble slab, 
simply inscribed with the name of "CALnouN," adjusted to its 
position. The lingering multitude then slowly passed from the 
burial ground — 

" And we left him alone with his glory." 

The last offices of respect and veneration, such as no man ever 
received from the hearts and hands of Carolinians, had been ren- 
dered, but it was felt by all that no monument could be raised too 
high for his excellence, no record too enduring for his virtue. 

" Tanto noinini nullum par elogium." 

For many weeks after the interment, the marble that covered 
the tomb was daily strewn with roses, and other fragrant flowers, 
and vases containing sucli, and filled with water freshly renewed, 
were placed around, the spontaneous offerings of the people. An 



59 

oak, the emblem of his strength of character, was planted at the 
foot, and a willow, whose branches soon drooped over the grave, 
became a type of the general sorrow. 



PENNSYLVANIA LEGISLATURE. 

Executive Chamber, 

Harrisburg, April 23.d, 1850. 
To his excellency W. B. Seabrook, 

Governor of the State of South Carolina. 
Dear Sir : The accompanying resolutions of the Legislature of 
this State have been presented to me for transmission to your 
excellency, with a request that the same be communicated to the 
Legislature of South Carolina. 

In performing this duty, allow me to express my personal regard 
for the social and public virtues of the illustrious deceased, and my 
deep sense of the great loss which this dispensation of Providence 
has inflicted upon, the American nation. 

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, yours, &c., 

WM. F. JOHNSTON. 



RESOLUTIONS 

Of the Legislature of Pennsylvania, relative to the death of 
the Hon. John C. Calhoun. 

Whereas, it has pleased an all-wise Providence to remove from 
the scenes of earth one of America's most distinguished sons, whose 
name has been associated with her history during the last forty 
years, and whose distinguished talent, private virtues, and purity 
of character, have shed lustre on her name. 

And whereas, it is becoming and proper that society, whilst hum- 
bly bowing to the dispensations of infinite wisdom, should, in such 
cases, testify its sense of the worth and exalted character of the 
illustrious deceased, by appropriate tributes of respect to his 
memory, forgetting all points of difference, and cherishing the 
recollection only of his virtues. 



60 

Be it tliercfore resolved, unanimonshj, hy the Senate and House 
of Rejyresentatives of the Co^nmomoealth of Pennsylvania, in Gen- 
eral Assembly met, and it is hereby enacted hy the authority of the 
same. That this General Assembly has heard, with profound sen- 
sibility and heartfelt sorrow, of the death of the Hon. Joiix C. 
CALnouN, of South Carolina, for whom, in his long and distin- 
guished public career, whilst often differing from his views and 
policy, we have ever entertained the most profound respect ; and 
in whose private virtues, and personal character, there has been 
every thing to win admiration, and conciliate affection. 

Resolved, That, as a further testimony of respect for the memory 
of the deceased, an extract from the Journal of each House, to be 
signed by the Speakers, be communicated to the Governor, with a 
request that he forward the same to the widow and family of the 
deceased, with a letter of condolence, expi-essing the sincere sym- 
pathy of this General Assembly with them in this, their afflicting 
bereavement. 

Resolved, That the Governor be further requested to forward a 
copy of the foregoing resolutions to the Governor of South Caro- 
lina, with a request that he communicate the same to the Legislature 
of said Commonwealth. 

J. S. McCALMONT, 
Speaker of the House of Representatives. 
V. BEST, 
Speaker of the Senate. 
Approved the sixth day of April, one thousand eight hundred 
and fifty. 

WILLIAM F. JOHNSTON. 



61 

NEW YORK LEGISLATURE. 

SENATE. 

The Governor transmitted the following communication : — 

State of New York, Executive Department, 
Albany, April 2, 1850. 
To the Legislature : 

We learn, from the public journals, that the Hon. John C. Cal- 
houn died at Washington, on the morning of Sunday last. His 
death is an event of interest, and a source of grief to all sections 
of the country, in whose service nearly the whole of his active life 
has been spent. I believe, therefore, that I consult the public 
sense of propriety, not less than my own feelings, in giving you 
this official information of his decease. 

Mr. Calhoun became connected with the Federal Government 
at an early age, and died in its service. He has been a member 
of the House of Representatives, Secretary of State, Secretary of 
War, Senator in Congress, and Vice President of the United 
States. 

In each of these stations he has been distinguished for ability, 
integrity, and independence. He has taken a prominent part in 
every great cjuestion which has agitated the country during the 
last forty years, and has exerted a commanding influence upon the 
whole course of our public policy. 

In his death the nation has lost a statesman of consummate 
ability, and of unsullied character. It is fitting that this State 
should evince sorrow at his death, by such action as her Repre- 
sentatives may deem appropriate. 

HAMILTON FISH. 

Mr. Morgan offered the following resolution : 
That a select committee of three be appointed on the part of the 
Senate, to meet with a committee on the part of the Assembly, to 
report resolutions expressive of the sense of the Legislature relative 
to the death of the Hon. John C. Calhoun, and that the Senate 
will meet at four o'clock this afternoon to hear the report of said 
committee. 



62 

The resolution was luianimously adopted. 

The select committee, on the part of the Senate, on the Calhoun 
resolutions, are jMessrs. jMorgan, Man, and Babcock. 

ASSEMBLY. 

The Governor transmitted to the House a message, announcing 
the death of Mr. Calhoun. 

The proceedings of the Senate on this subject were read, desig- 
nating a committee on the part of the Senate, and requesting a 
like committee on the part of the House. 

Mr. Ford, after a few appropriate remarks, moved a concurrence 
in the resolution of the Senate. 

Mr. Raymond concurred in the motion, and paid a brief tribute 
to the memory of the deceased, as a citizen and statesman. 

Mr. Bacon followed, conceding to Mr. Calhoun great intellect 
and virtue. Messrs. Monroe and Varnu3i also sustained the 
motion. 

The resolutions were unanimously adopted, and the Chair named 
Messrs. Ford, jMonroe, Godard, Raymond, and Church, as the com- 
mittee on the part of the House. 

Recess to four o'clock. 

EVENING SESSION. 



Mr. JMoRGAN, from the Joint Select Committee appointed on the 
message of the Governor, announcing the death of the Hon. John 
C. Calhoun, offered the following resolutions, which were unan- 
imously adopted. 

Resolved, That the Legislature of the State of New York have 
heard, with deep regret, of the death of the Hon. John C. Cal- 
houn, United States vSenator from South Carolina; that they 
entertain sentiments of profound respect for the pre-eminent 
ability, the unsullied character, and the high-minded independence, 
which, throughout his life, distinguished his devotion to the public 
service ; and that they unite, with their fellow-citizens throughout 
the Union, in deploring his death as a public calamity. 



63 

Resolved, That the Governor of this State be requested to 
transmit a copy of these resolutions to the President of the Senate 
of the United States, with a request that the same be entered on 
their journal ; and a copy to the Governor of the State of Soutli 
Carolina, with a request that he transmit the same to the family 
of the deceased. 

Resolved, That, as a token of respect to the memory of the 
deceased, the public offices be closed, and the flag at the Capitol be 
displayed at half-mast for twenty-four hours, and that the Senate 
do now adjourn. 

The same resolutions were passed by the Assembly, which also 
adjourned. 



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OBITUARY HONORS 



TO THE MEMORY OF 



HENRY CLAY. 



IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, 

Wednesday, June 30, 1852. 

After the reading of the Journal, Mr. UNDERWOOD rose, and addressed 
the Senate as follows : — 

Mr. President : I rise to announce the death of my colleague, 
Mr. Clay. He died at his lodgings, in the National Hotel of this 
city, at seventeen minutes past eleven o'clock yesterday morning, 
in the seventy-sixth year of his age. He expired with perfect 
composure, and without a groan or struggle. 

By his death our country has lost one of its most eminent 
citizens and statesmen ; and, I think, its greatest genius. I shall 
not detain the. Senate by narrating the transactions of his long and 
useful life. His distinguished services as a statesman are insepa- 
rably connected with the history of his country. As Representative 
and Speaker in the other House of Congress, as Senator in this 
body, as Secretary of State, and as envoy abroad, he has, in all 
these positions, exhibited a wisdom and patriotism which have 
made a deep and lasting impression upon the grateful hearts of his 
countrymen. His thoughts and his actions have already been 
published to the world in written biography; in Congressional 
debates and reports ; in the journals of the two Houses ; and in 
the pages of American history. They have been commemorated 
by monuments erected on the way side. They have been engraven 
on medals of gold. Their memory will survive the monuments of 
5 



marble and the medals of gold ; foi* these are effaced and decay by 
the friction of ages. But the thoughts and actions of my late col- 
league have become identified with the immortality of the human 
mind, and will pass down, from generation to generation, as a 
portion of our national inheritance, incapable of annihilation so 
long as genius has an admirer, or liberty a friend. 

Mr. President, the character of Henry Clay was formed and 
developed by the influence of our free institutions. His physical, 
mental, and moral faculties, were the gift of God. That they were 
greatly superior to the faculties allotted to most men cannot be 
questioned. They were not cultivated, improved, and directed by 
a liberal or collegiate education. His respectable parents were not 
wealthy, and had not the means of maintaining their children at 
college. Moreover, his father died when he was a boy. At an 
early period Mr. Clay was thrown upon his own resources, without 
patrimony. He grew up in a clerk's office, in Richmond, Virginia. 
He there studied law. He emigrated from his native State and 
settled in Lexington, Kentucky, where he commenced the practice 
of his profession before he was of full age. 

The road to wealth, to honor, and fame, was open before him. 
Under our Constitution and laws he might freely employ his great 
faculties, unobstructed by legal impediments, and unaided by ex- 
clusive privileges. Very soon Mr. Clay made a deep and favorable 
impression upon the people among whom he began his career. 
The excellence of his natural faculties was soon displayed. Neces- 
sity stimulated him in their cultivation. His assiduity, skill, and 
fidelity in professional engagements, secured public confidence. 
He was elected member of the Legislatm-e of Kentucky, in which 
body he served several sessions prior to 1806. In that year he 
was elevated to a seat in the Senate of the United States. 

At the bar, and in the General Assembly of Kentucky, Mr. 
Clay first manifested those high qualities as a public speaker, which 
have secured to him so much popular applause and admiration. 
His physical and mental organization eminently qualified him to 
become a great and impressive orator. His person was tall, slender, 
and commanding. His temperament ardent, fearless, and full of 
hope. His countenance clear, expressive, and variable — indicating 
the emotion which predominated at the moment with exact simili- 




> 







V 



n 



^'- 



\ 



/ 



tude. His voice, cultivated and modulated in harmony with the 
sentiment he desired to express, fell upon the ear like the melody 
of enrapturing music His eye beaming with intelligence, and 
flashing with coruscations of genius. His gestures and attitudes 
graceful and natural. These personal advantages won the pre- 
possessions of an audience, even before his intellectual powers 
began to move his hearers ; and when his strong common sense, 
his profound reasoning, his clear conceptions of his subject in all 
its bearings, and his striking and beautiful illustrations, united 
with such personal qualities, were brought to the discussion of any 
question, his audience was enraptured, convinced, and led by the 
orator as if enchanted by the lyre of Orpheus. 

No man was ever blessed by his Creator with faculties of a higher 
order of excellence than those given to Mr. Clay. In the quick- 
ness of his perceptions, and the rapidity with which his conclusions 
were formed, he had few equals, and no superior. He was emi- 
nently endowed with a nice discriminating taste for order, sym- 
metry, and beauty. He detected in a moment every thing out of 
place or deficient in his room, upon his farm, in his own or the 
dress of others. He was a skilful judge of the form and qualities 
of his domestic animals, which he delighted to raise on his farm. 
I could give you instances of the quickness and minuteness of his 
keen faculty of observation, which never overlooked any thing. A 
want of neatness and order was offensive to him. He was par- 
ticular and neat in his handwriting, and his apparel. A slovenly 
blot, or negligence of any sort, met his condemnation ; while he 
was so organized that he attended to, and arranged little things to 
please and gratify his natural love for neatness, order, and beauty, 
his great intellectual faculties grasped all the subjects of jurispru- 
dence and politics with a facility amounting almost to intuition. 
As a lawyer, he stood at the head of his profession. As a states- 
man, his stand at the head of the Republican Whig party for nearly 
half a century, establishes his title to pre-eminence among his 
illustrious associates, 

Mr. Clat was deeply versed in all the springs of human action. 
He had read and studied biography and history. Shortly after I 
left college, I had occasion to call on him in Frankfort, where he 
was attending court, and well I remember to have found him with 



Plutareli's Lives in his hands. No one better than he knew how 
to avail himself of human motives, and all the circumstances which 
surrounded a subject, or could present them with more force and 
skill to accomplish the object of an argument. 

Mr. Clay, throughout his public career, was influenced by the 
loftiest patriotism. Confident in the truth of his eonvictions, and 
the purity of his purposes, he was ardent, sometimes impetuous, 
in the pursuit of objects which he believed essential to the general 
welfare. Those who stood in his way were thrown aside without 
fear or ceremony. He never affected a courtier's deference to men 
or opinions, which he thought hostile to the best interests of his 
country ; and hence he may have wounded the vanity of those who 
thought themselves of consequence. It is certain, whatever the 
cause, that, at one period of his life, Mr. Clay might have been 
referred to as proof that there is more truth than fiction in those 
profound lines of the poet — 

" He who ascends the mountain top shall find 

Its loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow j 
He who surpasses or subdues mankind. 

Must look down on the hate of those below : 

Though far above the sun of glorj' glow, 
And far beneath the earth and ocean spread. 

Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow 
Contending tempests on his naked head. 
And thus reward the toils which to those summits led." 

Calumny and detraction emptied their vials iipon him. But how 
glorious the change! He outlived malice and envy. He lived 
long enough to prove to the world that his ambition was no more 
than a holy aspiration to make his country the greatest, most 
powerful, and best governed on the earth. If he desired its 
highest office, it was because the greater power and influence 
resulting from such elevation would enable him to do more than 
he otherwise could for the progress and advancement — first of his 
own countrymen, then of his whole race. His sympathies embraced 
all. The African slave, the Creole of Spanish America, the children 
of renovated classic Greece — all families of men, without respect 
to color or clime, found in his expanded bosom and comprehensive 
intellect a friend of their elevation and amelioration. Such ambi- 
tion as that, is God's implantation in the human heart for raising 



the down-trodden nations of the earth, and fitting them for regen- 
erated existence in politics, in morals, and religion. 

Bold and determined as Mr. Clay was in all his actions, he was, 
nevertheless, conciliating. He did not obstinately adhere to things 
impracticable. If he could not accomplish the best, he contented 
himself with the nighest approach to it. He has been the great 
compromiser of those political agitations and opposing opinions 
which have, in the belief of thousands, at different times, endan-r 
gered the perpetuity of our Federal Government and Union. 

Mr. Clay was no less remarkable for his admirable social qual- 
ities than for his intellectual abilities. As a companion, he was 
the delight of his friends, and no man ever had better or truer. 
They have loved him from the beginning, and loved him to the 
last. His hospitable mansion at Ashland was always open to their 
reception. No guest ever thence departed without feeling happier 
for his visit. But, alas ! that hospitable mansion has already been 
converted into a house of mourning ; already has intelligence of 
his death passed with electric velocity to that aged and now 
widowed lady, who, for more than fifty years, bore to him all the 
endearing relations of wife, and whose feeble condition prevented 
her from joining him in this city, and soothing the anguish of life's 
last scene, by those endearing attentions which no one can give so 
well as woman and a wife. May Grod infuse into her heart and 
mind the Christian spirit of submission under her bereavement ! 
It cannot be long before she may expect a reunion in Heaven. A 
nation condoles with her and her children on account of their 
irreparable loss. 

Mr. Clay, from the nature of his disease, declined very gradu- 
ally. He bore his protracted sufferings with great equanimity and 
patience. On one occasion he said to me, that when death was 
inevitable, and must soon come, and when the sufferer was ready 
to die, he did not perceive the wisdom of praying to be " delivered 
from sudden death." He thought, under such circumstances, the 
sooner suffering was relieved by death the better. He desired the 
termination of his own sufferings, while he acknowledged the duty 
of patiently waiting and abiding the pleasui-e of God. Mr. Clay 
frequently spoke to me of his hope of eternal life, founded upon 
the merits of Jesus Christ as a Saviour ; who, as he remarked, 



6 

came into the world to bring " life and immortality to light." He 
was a member of the Episcopalian Church. In one of our con- 
versations he told me, that, as his hour of dissolution approached, 
he found that his affections were concentrating more and more 
upon his domestic circle — his wife and children. In my daily 
visits he was in the habit of asking me to detail to him the trans- 
actions of the Senate. This I did, and he manifested much interest 
in j)assing occui'rences. His inquiries were less frequent as his 
end approached. For the week preceding his death he seemed 
to be altogether abstracted from the concerns of the world. 
When he became so low that he could not converse without 
being fatigued, he frequently requested those around him to 
converse. He would then quietly listen. He retained his mental 
faculties in great perfection. His memory remained perfect. 
He frequently mentioned events and conversations of recent occui-- 
rence, showing that he had a perfect recollection of what was said 
and done. He said to me that he was grateful to God for con- 
tinuing to him the blessing of reason, which enabled him to con- 
template and reflect on his situation. He manifested, during his 
confinement, the same characteristics which marked his conduct 
through the vigor of his life. He was exceedingly averse to give 
his friends "trouble," as he called it. Some time before he knew 
it, wo commenced waiting through the night in an adjoining room. 
He said to me, after passing a painful day, " perhaps some one had 
better remain all night in the parlor." From this time he knew 
some friend was constantly at hand ready to attend to him. 

Mr. President, the majestic form of Mr. Clay will no more 
grace these Halls. No more shall we hear that voice, which has 
so often thrilled and charmed the assembled Representatives of the 
American people. No more shall we see that waving hand and 
eye of light, as when he was engaged unfolding his policy in regard 
to the varied interests of our growing and mighty Republican 
empire. His voice is silent on earth for ever. The darkness of 
death has obscured the lustre of his eye. But the memory of his 
services — not only to his beloved Kentucky, not only to the 
United States, but for the cause of human freedom ^nd progress 
throughout the world — will live through future ages, as a bright 
example, stimulating and encoui-aging his own coiilitrymen, and 



the people of all nations, in their patriotic devotions to country 
and liumanity. 

With Christians, there is yet a nobler and a higher thought in 
regard to Mr. Clay. They will think of him in connexion with 
eternity. They will contemplate his immortal spirit, occupying its 
true relative magnitude among the moral stars of glory in the 
presence of God. They will think of him as having fulfilled the 
duties allotted to him on earth, having been regenerated by Divine 
grace, and having passed through the valley of the shadow of 
death, and reached an everlasting and happy home in that " house 
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." 

On Sunday morning last, I was watching alone at Mr. Clay's 
bedside. For the last hour he had been unusually quiet, and I 
thought he was sleeping. In that, however, he told me I was 
mistaken. Opening his eyes, and looking at me, he said, " Mr. 
Underwood, there may be some question where my remains shall 
be buried. Some persons may designate Frankfort. I wish to 
repose at the cemetery in Lexington, where many of my friends 
and connexions are buried." My reply was, "I will endeavor to 
have your wish executed." 

I now ask the Senate to have his corpse transmitted to Lexing- 
ton, Kentucky, for sepulture. Let him sleep with the dead of that 
city, in and near which his home has been for more than half a 
century. For the people of Lexington, the living and the dead, 
he manifested, by the statement made to me, a pure and holy 
sympathy, and a desire to cleave unto them as strong as that which 
bound Ruth to Naomi. It was his anxious wish to return to them 
before he died, and to realize what the daughter of Moab so 
strongly felt and beautifully expressed : " Thy people shall be my 
people, and thy God my God. Where thou diest will I die, and 
there will I be buried." 

It is fit that the tomb of Henry Clay should be in the city of 
Lexington. In our Revolution, liberty's first libation-blood was 
poured out in a town of that name in Massachusetts. On hearing 
it, the pioneers of Kentucky consecrated the name, and applied it 
to the place where Mr. Clay desired to be buried. The associa- 
tions connected with the name harmonize with his character; and 
the monument erected to his memory at the spot selected by him, 



8 

•will be visited by the votaries of genius and liberty with tbat 
reverence wbicli is inspired at tlie tomb of Washington. Upon 
that monument let his epitaph be engraved. 

Mr. President, I have availed myself of Dr. Johnson's para- 
phrase of the epitaph on Thomas Hanmer, with a few alterations 
and additions, to express, in borrowed verse, my admiration for 
the life and character of Mr. Clay, and, with this heart-tribute to 
the memory of my illustrious colleague, I conclude my remarks : — 

Born when Freedom her stripes und stars unfinl-d. 
When Revolution shook the startled world — 
Heroes and sages taught his brilliant mind 
To know and love tJie rights of all mankind. 
" In life's first bloom his public toils began, 
At once commenced the Senator and man : 
In business dext'rous, weighty in debate, 
Near fifty years he labor-d for the State. 
In every speech persuasive v.'isdom flow'd. 
In every act refulgent virtue glow'd: 
Suspended faction ceased from rage and strife. 
To hear his eloquence and praise his life. 
Resistless merit fixed tlie Members' choice, 
Who hail'd him Speaker witli united voice." 
His talents ripening with advancing years — 
His wisdom growing with his public cares — 
A chosen envoy, war's dark horrors cease, 
And tides of carnage turn to streams of peace. 
Conflicting principles, internal strife, 
Tarift' and slavery, disunion rife. 
Are all compromised by his great hand. 
And beams of joy illuminate the land. 
Patriot, Christian, Husband, Father, Friend, 
Thy work of life achieved a glorious end ! 

I offer the following resolutions : — 



Resolved, That a committee of six be appointed by the President of tlie Senate, to take 
order for superintending the funeral of Henry Clay, late a member of this body, which 
will take place to-morrow at twelve o'clock, m., and that the Senate will attend the 
same. 

Resolved, That the members of tlie Senate, from a sincere desire of showing every mark 
of resj)ect to the memory of the deceased, will go into mourning for one montli, by the 
usual mode of wearing crape on the left arm. 

Resolved, As a further mark of respect entcrtuincd by the Senate fur the memory of 
Henry Clay, and his long and distinguished services to his country, tliat his remains, in 
pursuance of the known wishes of his family, be removed to the place of sepulture selected 
by himself at Lexington, in Kentucky, in charge of tlie Sergeant-at-Arms, and attended by 
a committee of six Senators, to be appointed by the President of the Senate, who shall 
liave full power to carry this resolution into effect. 



Mr. CASS said: — 

Mr. President : Again lias an impressive warning come to teacL 
us, that in the midst of life we are in death. The ordinary labors 
of this Hall are suspended, and its contentions hushed, before the 
power of Him, who says to the storm of human passion as He said 
of old to the waves of Galilee — Peace, be still. The lessons of 
His providence, severe as they may be, often become merciful dis- 
pensations, like that which is now spreading sorrow through the 
land, and which is reminding us that we have higher duties to 
fulfil, and graver responsibilities to encounter, than those that meet 
us here, when we lay our hands upon His holy word, and invoke 
His holy name, promising to be faithful to that Constitution which 
He gave us in His mercy, and will withdraw only in the hour of 
our blindness and disobedience, and of His own wrath. 

Another great man has fallen in our land, ripe indeed in years 
and in honors, but never dearer to the American people than when 
called from the theatre of his services and renown to that final bar 
where the lofty and the lowly must all meet at last. 

I do not rise, upon this mournful occasion, to indulge in the 
language of panegyi'ic. My regard for the memory of the dead, 
and for the obligations of the living, would equally rebuke such a 
course. The severity of truth is, at once, our proper duty and our 
best consolation. Born during the Revolutionary struggle, our 
deceased associate was one of the few remaining public men who 
connect the present generation with the actors in the trying scenes 
of that eventful period, and whose names and deeds will soon be 
known only in the history of their country. He was another 
illustration, and a noble one, too, of the glorious equality of our 
institutions, which freely offer all their rewards to all who justly 
seek them; for he was the architect of his own fortune, having 
made his way in life by self-exertion ; and he was an early adven- 
turer in the great forest of the West, then a world of primitive 
vegetation, but now the abode of intelligence and religion, of pros- 
perity and civilization. But he possessed that intellectual supe- 
riority which overcomes surrounding obstacles, and which local 
seclusion cannot long withhold fi-om general knowledge and appre- 
ciation. 



10 



It is almost half a century since lie passed through Chillicothe, 
then the seat of Government of Ohio, where I was a member of 
the Legislature, on his way to take his place in this very body, 
which is now listening to this reminiscence, and to a feeble tribute 
of regard from one who then saw him for the first time, but who 
can never forget the impression he produced by the charms of his 
conversation, the frankness of his manner, and the high qualities 
with which he was endowed. Since then he has belonged to his 
country, and has taken a part, and a prominent part, both in peace 
and war, in all the great questions afiiecting her interest and her 
honor ; and though it has been my fortune often to differ from him, 
yet I believe he was as pure a patriot as ever participated in the 
councils of a nation, anxious for the public good, and seeking to 
promote it, during all the vicissitudes of a long and eventful life. 
That he exercised a powerful influence, within the sphere of his 
action, through the whole country, indeed, we all feel and know; 
and we know, too, the eminent endowments to which he owed this 
high distinction. Frank and fearless in the expression of his 
opinion, and in the performance of his duties, with rare powers of 
eloquence, which never failed to rivet the attention of his auditory, 
and which always commanded admiration, even when they did not 
carry conviction — prompt in decision, and firm in action, and with 
a vigorous intellect, trained in the contests of a stirring life, and 
strengthened by enlarged experience and observation, joined withal 
to an ardent love of country, and to great purity of purpose — 
these were the elements of his power and success; and we dwell 
upon them with mournful gratification now, when we shall soon 
follow him to the cold and silent tomb, where we shall commit 
" earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust," but with the blessed 
conviction of the truth of that Divine revelation which teaches us 
that there is life and hope beyond the narrow house, where we 
shall leave him alone to the mercy of his God and ours. 

He has passed beyond the reach of human praise or censure ; 
but the judgment of his contemporaries has preceded and pro- 
nounced the judgment of history, and his name and fame Avill shed 
lustre upon his country, and will be proudly cherished in the 
hearts of his countrymen for long ages to come. Yes, they will 
be cherished and freshly remembered when these marble columns, 



11 

that surround us, so often the witnesses of his triumph — but iu a 
few brief hours, when his mortal frame, despoiled of the immortal 
spirit, shall rest under this dome for the last tune, to become the 
witnesses of his defeat in that final contest, where the mightiest 
fall before the great destroyer — when these marble columns shall 
themselves have fallen, like all the works of man, leaving their 
broken fragments to tell the story of former magnificence, amid 
the very ruins which announce decay and desolation. 

I was often with him during his last illness, when the world and 
the things of the world were fast fading away before him. lie 
knew that the silver cord was almost loosened, and that the golden 
bowl was breaking at the fountain ; but he was resigned to the will 
of Providence, feeling that He who gave has the right to take 
away, in His own good time and manner. After his duty to his 
Creator, and his anxiety for his family, his first care was for his 
country, and his first wish for the preservation and perpetuation 
of the Constitution and the Union — dear to him in the hour of 
death, as they had ever been in the vigor of life. Of that Consti- 
tution and Union, whose defence in the last and greatest crisis of 
their peril had called forth all his energies, and stimulated those 
memorable and powerful exertions, which he who witnessed can 
never forget, and which no doubt hastened the final catastrophe a 
nation now deplores with a sincerity and unanimity not less honor- 
able to themselves than to the memory of the object of their affec- 
tions. And when we shall enter that narrow valley, through which 
he has passed before us, and which leads to the judgment-seat of 
God, may we be able to say, through faith in his Son, our Saviour, 
and in the beautiful language of the hymn of the dying Christian 
— dying, but ever living, and triumphant — 



"The world recedes, it disappears — 
Heaven opens on my eyes ! my ears 

With sounds seraphic ring ; 
Lend, lend, your wings ! I mount — I fly I 
Oh, Grave ! where is thy victorj- .' 

Oh, Death ! where is thy sting."' 

" Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last hour be 
like his." 



12 

Mr. HUNTER said: — 

Mr. President : "We have heard, with deep sensibility, what 
has just fallen from the Senators who have preceded me. We have 
heard, sir, the voice of Kentucky — and, upon this occasion, she 
had a right to speak — in mingled accents of pride and sorrow; 
for it has rarely fallen to the lot of any State to lament the loss of 
such a son. But, Virginia, too, is entitled to her place in this 
procession ; for she cannot be supposed to be unmindful of the tie 
which bound her to the dead. When the earth opens to receive 
the mortal part which she gave to man, it is then that affection is 
eager to bury in its bosom every recollection but those of love and 
kindness. And, sir, when the last sensible tie is about to be 
severed, it is then that we look with anxious interest to the deeds 
of the life, and to the emanations of the heart and the mind, for 
those more enduring monuments which are the creations of an 
immortal nature. 

In this instance, we can be at no loss for these. This land, sir, 
is full of the monuments of his genius. His memory is as im- 
perishable as American history itself, for he was one of those who 
made it. Sir, he belonged to that marked class who are the men 
of their century ; for it was his rare good fortune not only to have 
been endowed with the capacity to do great things, but to have 
enjoyed the opportunities of achieving them. I know, sir, it has 
been said and deplored, that he wanted some of the advantages of 
an early education ; but it, perhaps, has not been remembered 
that, in many respects, he enjoyed such opportunities for mental 
training as can rarely fall to the lot of man. He had not a chance 
to learn as much from books, but he had such opportunities of 
learning from men as few have ever enjoyed. Sir, it is to be re- 
membered that he was reared at a time when there was a state of 
society, in the Commonwealth which gave him birth, such as has 
never been seen there before nor since. It was his early privilege 
to see how justice was administered by a Pendleton and a Wythe, 
with the last of whom he was in the daily habit of familiar inter- 
course. He had constant opportunities to observe how forensic 
questions were managed by a Marshall and a Wickham. He was 
old enough, too, to have heard and to have appreciated the 
eloquence of a Patrick Heni-y, and of George Keith Taylor. In 



13 

short, sir, he lived in a society in which the examples of a Jeffer- 
son, and a Madison, and a Monroe, were living influences, and on 
which the setting sun of a Washington cast the mild effulgence 
of its departing rays. 

He was trained^ too, as has been well said by the Senator from 
Michigan, [Mr. Cass,] at a period when the recent Revolutionary 
struggle had given a more elevated tone to patriotism, and im- 
parted a higher cast to public feeling and to public character. 
Such lessons were worth, perhaps, more to him than the whole 
encyclopedia of scholastic learning. Not only were the circum- 
stances of his early training favorable to the development of his 
genius, but the theatre upon which he was thrown was eminently 
propitious for its exercise. The circumstances of the early settle- 
ment of Kentucky, the generous, daring, and reckless character of 
the people — all fitted it to be the theatre for the display of those 
commanding qualities of heart and mind which he so eminently 
possessed. There can be little doubt but that those people, and 
their chosen leader, exercised a mutual influence upon each other ; 
and no one can be surprised that, with his brave spirit and com- 
manding eloquence, and fascinating address, he should have led 
not only there but elsewhere. 

I did not know him, Mr. President, as you did, in the fresh- 
ness of his prime, or in the full maturity of his manhood. I did 
not hear him, sir, as you have heard him, when his voice roused 
the spirit of his countrymen for war — when he cheered the droop- 
ing, when he rallied the doubting, through all the vicissitudes of a 
long and doubtful contest. I have never seen him, sir, when, 
from the height of the Chair, he ruled the House of Representa- 
tives by the energy of his will, or when upon the level of the floor 
he exercised a control almost as absolute, by the mastery of his 
intellect. "When I first knew him, his sun had a little passed its 
zenith. The effacing hand of time had just begun to touch the 
lineaments of his manhood. But yet, sir, I saw enough of him to 
be able to realize what he might have been in the prime of his 
strength, and in the full vigor of his maturity. I saw him, sir, as 
you did, when he led the " opposition" during the administration 
of Mr. Van Buren. I had daily ojiportunities of witnessing the 
exhibition of his powers during the extra session under Mr. Tyler's 



14 



administration. And I saw, as wo all saw, in a recent contest, the 
exhibition of power on his part, which was most marvellous in 
one of his years. 

Mr. President, he may not have had as much of analytic skill 
as some others, in dissecting a subject. It may be, perhaps, that 
he did not seek to look quite so far ahead as some who have been 
most distinguished for political forecast. But it may be truly said 
of Mr. Clay, that he was no exaggerator. He looked at events 
through neither end of the telescope, but surveyed them with the 
natural and the naked eye. He had the capacity of seeing things 
as the people saw them, and of feeling things as the people felt 
them. He had, sir, beyond any other man whom I have ever 
seen, the true mesmeric touch of the orator — the rare art of 
transferring his impulses to others. Thoughts, feelings, emotions, 
came from the ready mould of his genius, radiant and glowing, 
and communicated their own warmth to every heart which received 
them. His, too, was the power of wielding the higher and intenser 
forms of passion with a majesty and an ease which none but the 
great masters of the human heart can ever employ. It was his 
rare good fortune to have been one of those who form, as it were, 
a sensible link, a living tradition, which connects one age with 
another, and through which one generation speaks its thoughts and 
feelings, and appeals to another. And, unfortunate is it for a 
country, when it ceases to possess such men, for it is to them that 
we chiefly owe the capacity to maintain the unity of the great 
Epos of human history, and preserve the consistency of political 
action. 

Sir, it may be said that the grave is still new-made which covers 
the mortal remains of one of those great men who have been taken 
from our midst, and the earth is soon to open to receive another. 
I know not whether it can be said to be a matter of lamentation, 
so far as the dead are concerned, that the thread of this life has 
been clipped when once it has been fully spim. They escape the 
infirmities of age, and they leave an imperishable name behind 
them. The loss, sir, is not theirs, but ours ; and a loss the more 
to be lamented, that we see none to fill the places thus made vacant 
on the stage of public afi"airs. But it may be well for us, who 
have much more cause to mourn and to lament sucli deaths, to 



15 

pause amidst the business of life for the purpose of contemplating 
the spectacle before us, and of drawing the moral from the pass- 
ing event. It is when death seizes for its victims those who are, 
by " a head and shoulders, taller than all the rest," that we feel 
most deei^ly the uncertainty of human affairs, and that " the glories 
of our mortal state are shadows, not substantial things." It is, 
sir, in such instances as the present that we can best study by the 
light of example the true objects of life, and the wisest ends of 
human pursuit. 



Mr. HALE said: — 

Mr. President : I hope I shall not be considered obtrusive, if 
on this occasion for a brief moment, I mingle my humble voice 
with those that, with an ability that I shall neither attempt nor 
hope to equal, have sought to do justice to the worth and memory 
of the deceased, and at the same time appropriately to minister to 
the sympathies and sorrows of a stricken people. Sir, it is the 
teaching of inspiration that "no man liveth and no man dieth 
unto himself" 

There is a lesson taught no less in the death than in the life of 
every man — eminently so in the case of one who has filled a large 
space and occupied a distinguished position in the thoughts and 
regard of his fellow-men. Particularly instructive at this time is 
the event which we now deplore, although the circumstances at- 
tending his decease are such as are calculated to assuage rather 
than aggravate the grief which it must necessarily cause. His 
time had fully come. The three score and ten marking the ordi- 
nary period of human life had for some years been passed, and, 
full of years and of honors, he has gone to his rest. And now, 
when the nation is marshalling itself for the contest which is to 
decide " who shall be greatest," as if to chasten our ambition, to 
restrain and subdue the violence of passion, to moderate our de- 
sires and elevate our hopes, we have the spectacle of one who, by 
the force of his intellect and the energy of his own purpose, had 
achieved a reputation which the highest official honors of the Re- 
public might have illustrated, but could not have enhanced, laid 
low in death — as if, at the very outset of this political contest, on 
which the nation is now entering, to teach the ambitious and as- 



16 

piring the vanity of human pursuit and end of earthly honor. But, 
sir, I do not intend to dwell on that moral which is taught by the 
silent lips and closed eye of the illustrious dead, with a force such 
as no man ever spoke with ; but I shall leave the event, with its 
silent and mute eloquence, to impress its own appropriate teachings 
on the heart. 

In the long and eventful life of Mr. Clay, in the various posi- 
tions which he occupied, in the many posts of public duty which 
he filled, in the many exhibitions which his history affords of un- 
tiring energy, of unsurpassed eloquence, and of devoted patriotism, 
it would be strange indeed if different minds, as they dwell upon 
the subject, were all to select the same incidents of his life as pre- 
eminently calculated to challenge admiration and respect. 

Sir, my admiration — aye, my affection for Mr. Clay — was won 
and secured many years since, even in my school-boy days — when 
his voice of counsel, encouragement, and sympathy was heard in 
the other Hall of this Capitol, in behalf of the struggling colonies 
of the southern portion of this continent, who, in pursuit of their 
inalienable rights, in imitation of our own forefathers, had unfm-1- 
ed the banner of liberty, and, regardless of consequences, had gal- 
lantly rushed into that contest where "life is lost, or freedom 
won." And again, sir, when Grreece, rich in the memories of the 
past, awoke from the slumber of ages of oppression and centuries 
of shame, and resolved 

"To call her virtues back, and conquer time and fate"— 

there, over the plains of that classic land, above the din of battle 
and the clash of arms, mingling with the shouts of the victors and 
the groans of the vanquished, were heard the thrilling and stirring 
notes of that same eloquence, excited by a sympathy which knew 
no bounds, wide as the world, pleading the cause of Grecian liber- 
ty before the American Congress, as if to pay back to Greece the 
debt which every patriot and orator felt was her due. Sir, in the 
long and honorable career of the deceased, there are many events 
and circumstances upon which his friends and posterity will dwell 
with satisfaction and pride, but none which will preserve his mem- 
ory with more unfading lustre to future ages than the course he 
pursued in the Spanish-American and Greek revolutions. 



17 

Mr. CLEMENS said: — 

Mr. President : I should not have thought it necessary to add 
any thing to what has already been said, hut for a request prefer- 
red by some of the friends of the deceased. I should have been 
content to mourn him in silence, and left it to other tongues to 
pronounce his eulogy. What I have now to say shall be brief — 
very brief. 

Mr. President, it is now less than three short years ago since I 
first entered this body. At that period it numbered among its 
members many of the most illustrious statesmen this Republic has 
ever produced, or the world has ever known. Of the living, it is 
not my purpose to speak ; but in that brief period, death has been 
busy here ; and, as if to mark the feebleness of human things, his 
arrows have been aimed at the highest, the mightiest of us all. 
First, died Calhoun. And well, sir, do I remember the deep feel- 
ing evinced on that occasion by him whose death has been an- 
nounced here to-day, when he said : " I was his senior in years — 
in nothing else. In the course of natiu-e I ought to have preceded 
him. It has been decreed otherwise ; but I know that I shall lin- 
ger here only a short time, and shall soon follow him." It was 
genius mourning over his younger brothei', and too surely predict- 
ing his own approaching end. 

He, too, is now gone from among us, and left none like him be- 
hind. That voice, v^^hose every tone was music, is hushed and still. 
That clear, bright eye is dim and lustreless, and that breast, where 
grew and flourished every quality which could adorn and dignify 
our nature, is cold as the clod that soon must cover it. A few 
hours have wrought a mighty change — a change for which a lin- 
gering illness had, indeed, in some degree, prepared us ; but which, 
nevertheless, will still fall upon the nation with crushing force. 
Many a sorrowing heart is now asking, as I did yesterday, when I 
heard the first sound of the funeral bell — ■ 

" And is he p^nc ? — the pure of llie purest. 
The hand Uiat upheld our bright banner tlie surest, 

la he gone from our struggles away ? 
But yesterday lending a people new life. 
Cold, nmte, in the cotiin to-day." 



18 

Mr. President, this is an occasion when eulogy must fail to per- 
form its office. The long life which is now ended is a history of 
glorious deeds too mighty for the tongue of praise. It is in the 
hearts of his countrymen that his best epitaph must be written. It 
is in the admiration of a world that his renown must be recorded. 
In that deep love of country which distinguished every period of 
his life, he may not have been unrivalled. In loftiness of intel- 
lect, he was not without his peers. The skill with which he touch- 
ed every chord of the human heart may have been equalled. The 
iron will, the unbending firmness, the fearless courage, which 
marked his character, may have been shared by others. But 
where shall we go to find all these qualities united, concentrated, 
blended into one brilliant whole, and shedding a lustre upon one 
single head, which does not dazzle the beholder only because it 
attracts his love and demands his worship ? 

I scarcely know, sir, how far it may be allowable, upon an occa- 
sion like this, to refer to party struggles which have left wounds 
not yet entirely healed. I will venture, however, to suggest, that 
it should be a source of consolation to his friends that he lived long 
enough to see the full accomplishment of the last great work of his 
life, and to witness the total disappearance of that sectional tem- 
pest which threatened to whelm the Republic in ruins. Both the 
great parties of the country have agreed to stand upon the plat- 
form which he erected, and both of them have solemnly pledged 
themselves to maintain unimpaired the work of his hands. I doubt 
not the knowledge of this cheered him in his dying moments, and 
helped to steal away the pangs of dissolution. 

jNIr. President, if I knew any thing more that I could say, I 
would gladly utter it. To me, he was something more than kind, 
and I am called upon to mingle a private with the public grie£ 
I wish that I could do something to add to his fame. But he 
built for himself a monument of immortality, and left to his friends 
no task but that of soothing their own sorrow for his loss. We 
pay to him the tribute of our tears. More we have no power to 
bestow. Patriotism, honor, genius, courage, have all come to 
strew their garlands about his tomb ; and well they may, for ho 
was the peer of them all. 




Mr. COOPER said: — 

Mr. President : It is not always by words that the living pay 
to the dead the sincerest and most eloquent tribute. The tears of 
a nation, flowing spontaneously over the grave of a public bene- 
factor, is a more eloquent testimonial of his worth and of the aflFec- 
tion and veneration of his countrymen, than the most highly- 
wrought eulogium of the most gifted tongue. The heart is not 
necessarily tne fountain of words, but it is always the source of 
tears, whether of joy, gratitude, or grief. But sincere, truthful, 
and eloquent, as they are, they leave no permanent record of the 
virtues and greatness of him on whose tomb they are shed. As 
the dews of heaven falling at night are absorbed by the earth, or 
dried up by the morning sun, so the tears of a people, shed for 
their benefactor, disappear without leaving a trace to teU to future 
generations of the services, sacrifices, and virtues of him to whose 
memory they were a grateful tribute. But as homage paid to 
vii'tue is an incentive to it, it is right that the memory of the 
good, the great, and noble of the earth should be preserved and 
honored. 

The ambition, Mr. President, of the truly great, is more the 
hope of living in the memory and estimation of future ages than 
of possessing power in their own. It is this hope that stimulates 
them to perseverance ; that enables them to encounter disappoint- 
ment, ingratitude, and neglect, and to press on through toils, pri- 
vations, and perUs to the end. It was not the hope of discovering 
a world, over which he should himself exercise dominion, that sus- 
tained Columbus in all his trials. It was not for this he braved 
danger, disappointment, poverty, and reproach. It was not for 
this he subdued his native pride, wandered from kingdom to king- 
dom, kneeling at the feet of princes, a suppliant for means to prose- 
cute his sublime enterprise. It was not for this, after having at 
last secured the patronage of Isabella, that he put off in his crazy 
and ill-appointed fleet into unknown seas, to struggle with storms 
and tempests, and the rage of a mutinous crew. It was another 
and nobler kind of ambition that stimulated him to contend with 
terror, super stitution, and despair, and to press forward on his 
perilous course, when the needle in his compass, losing its polari- 
ty, seemed to unite with the fury of the elements and the insub- 



20 

ordinatiou of IiIs crew in turning him back from Iiis perilons But 
glorious undertaking. It was tbe hope "wliicli "was realized at last, 
when his ungrateful country was compelled to inscribe, as an epi- 
taph on his tomb — 

" COLUMBUS HAS GIVEN A NEW WORLD TO THE KINGDOMS OF 

CASTILE AND LEON," 

that enabled him, at ftrst, to brave so many disappointments, and 
at last, to conquer the multitude of perils that beset his pathway 
on the deep. This, sir, is the ambition of the truly great — not to 
achieve present fame, but future immortality. This being the 
case, it is befitting here to-day, to add to the life of Henry Clay 
the record of his death, signalized as it is by a nation's gratitude 
and grief. It is right that posterity should learn from us, the con- 
temporaries of the illustrious deceased, that his virtues and ser- 
vices were appreciated by his country, and acknowledged by the 
tears of his countrymen poured out upon his grave. 

The career of Henry Clay was a wonderful one. And what an 
illustration of the excellence of our institutions would a retrospect 
of his life afford ! Bom in an humble station, without any of the 
adventitious aids of fortune by which the obstructions on the road 
to fame are smoothed, he rose not only to the most exalted emi- 
nence of position, but likewise to the highest place in the affections 
of his countrymen. Taking into view the disadvantages of his 
early position, disadvantages against which he had always to con- 
tend, hia career is without a parallel in the history of great men. 
To have seen him a youth, without friends or fortune, and with but 
a scanty education, who would have ventured to predict for him a 
course so brilliant and beneficent, and a fame so well deserved and 
enduring ? Like the pine, which sometimes springs up amidst the 
rocks on the mountain side, with scarce a crevice in which to fix 
its roots, or soil to nourish them, but which, nevertheless, overtops 
all the trees of the surrounding forest, Henry Clay, by his own 
inherent, self-sustaining energy and genius, rose to an altitude of 
fame almost unequalled in the age in which he lived. As an 
orator, legislator, and statesman, he had no superior. All his 
faculties were remarkable, and in remarkable combination. Pos- 
sessed of a brilliant genius and fertile imagination, his judgment 



21 

"was sound, discriminating, and eminently practical. Of an ardent 
and impetuous temperament, lie was nevertheless perseyenng and 
firm of pui'pose. Frank, bold, and intrepid, he was cautious in 
providing against the contingencies and obstacles which might 
possibly rise up in the road to success. Generous, liberal, and 
entertaining broad and expanded views of national policy, in his 
legislative course he never transcended the limits of a wise 
economy. 

But, Mr. President, of all hie faculties, that of making friends, 
and attaching them to him, was the most remarkable and extra- 
ordinary. In this respect, he seemed to possess a sort of fascina- 
tion, by which all who came into his presence were attracted 
towards, and bound to him by ties which neither time nor cir- 
cumstances had power to dissolve or weaken. In the admiration 
of his friends was the recognition of the divinity of intellect ; in 
their attachment to him, a confession of his generous personal 
qualities and social virtues. 

Of the public services of Mr. Clay, the present occasion 
affords no room for a sketch more extended than that which his 
respected colleague [Mr. Undekwood] has presented. It is, how- 
ever, sufficient to say, that for more than forty years he has been 
a prominent actor in the drama of American affairs. During the 
late war with England, his voice was more potent than any other 
in awakening the spirit of the country, infusing confidence into 
the people, and rendering available the resources for carrying on 
the contest. In our domestic controversies, threatening the peace 
of the country and the integrity of the Union, he has always been 
fii'st to note danger, as well as to suggest the means of averting it. 
When the waters of the great political deep were upheaved by 
the tempest of discord, and the ark of the Union, freighted with 
the hopes and destinies of freedom, tossing about on the raging 
billows, and drifting every moment neai-er to the vortex which 
threatened to swallow it up, it was his clarion voice, rising above 
the storm, that admonished the crew of impending peril, and 
■counselled the way to safety. 

But, Mr. President, devotedly as he loved his country, his 
aspirations were not limited to its welfare alone. Wherever free- 
dom had a votary, that votary had a friend in Heney Clay ; and 



22 

in the struggle of the Spanish colonies for independenee he uttered 
words of encoui'agement, which have become the mottos on the 
banners of freedom in every land. But neither the services which 
he has rendered his own country, nor his wishes for the welfare 
of others, nor his genius, nor the affection of friends, could turn 
aside the destroyer. No price could piu-chase exemption from the 
common lot of humanity. Henry Clay, the wise, the great, the 
gifted, had to die; and his history is summed up in the biography 
which the Russian poet has prepared for all, kings and serfs — 

♦ * * * cc bom, living, dying, 
Quitting the still shore for the troubled wave. 
Struggling with storm-clouds, over shipwrecks flying, 
And casting anchor in the silent grave." 

Eut though time would not spare him, there is still this of con- 
solation : he died peacefully and happy, ripe in renown, full of 
years and of honors, and rich in the affections of his country. 
He had, too, the unspeakable satisfaction of closing his eyes whilst 
the country ho had loved so much, and served so well, was still in 
the enjoyment of peace, happiness, union, and prosperity — still 
advancing in all the elements of wealth, greatness, and power. 

I know, Mr. President, how unequal I have been to the appa- 
rently self-imposed task of presenting, in an appropriate manner, 
the merits of the illustrious deceased. But if I had remained 
silent on an occasion like this, when the hearts of my constituents 
are swelling with grief, I would have been disowned by them. It 
is for this reason — that of giving utterance to their feelings as 
well as of my own — that I have trespassed on the time of the 
Senate. I would that I could have spoken fitter words; but, such 
as they are, they were uttered by the tongue in response to the 
promptings of the heart. 

Mr. SEWARD said : — 
Mr. President: Fifty years ago, Henry Clay of Virginia, 
already adopted by Kentucky, then as youthful as himself, entered 
the service of his country, a representative in the unpretending 
Legislature of that rising State ; and having thenceforward, with 
ardor and constancy, pursued the gradual paths of an aspiring 
change through Halls of Congress, Foreign Courts, and Executive 



23 



Councils, he lias now, with the cheerfulness of a patriot, and the 
serenity of a Christian, fitly closed his long and arduous career, 
here in the Senate, in the full presence of the Republic, looking 
down upon the scene with anxiety and alarm, not merely a Senator 
like one of us, who yet remain in the Senate House, but filling 
that character which, though it had no authority of law, and was 
assigned without suffrage, Augustus Cfesar, nevertheless, declared 
was above the title of Emperor — Primus inter lUustres — the 
Prince of the Senate. 

Generals are tried, Mr. President, by examining the campaigns 
they have lost or won, and statesmen by reviewing the transac- 
tions in which they have been engaged. Hamilton would have 
been unknown to us, had there been no Constitution to be created ; 
as Brutus would have died in obscurity, had there been no Ccesar 
to be slain. 

Colonization, Revolution, and Organization — three great act;; 
in the drama of our National Progress — had already passed when 
the Western Patriot appeared on the public stage. He entered 
in that next division of the majestic scenes which was marked by 
an inevitable reaction of political forces, a wild strife of factions, 
and ruinous embarrassments in our foreign relations. This tran- 
sition stage is always more perilous than any other in the career 
of nations, and especially in the career of republics. It proved 
fetal to the Commonwealth in England. Scarcely any of the 
Spanish- American States have yet emerged from it; and more 
than once it has been sadly signalized by the ruin of the Repub- 
lican cause in France. 

The continuous administration of Washington and John Adams 
had closed under a cloud, which had thrown a broad, dark shadow 
over the future; the nation was deeply indebted at home and 
abroad, and its credit was prostrate. The Revolutionary factions 
had given place to two inveterate parties, divided by a gulf which 
had been worn by the conflict in which the Constitution was 
adopted, and made broader and deeper by a war of prejudices 
concerning the merits of the belligerents in the great European 
struggle that then convulsed the civilized world. Our extraordi- 
nary political system was little more than an ingenious theory, not 
yet practically established. The union of the States was as yet 



M 



only one of compact; for the political, social, and commercial 
necessities to wliicli it was so marvellously adapted, and wbicli, 
clustering thickly upon it, now render it indissoluble, had not then 
been broadly disclosed, nor had the habits of acquiescence, and 
the sentiments of loyalty, always slow of growth, fully ripened. 
The bark that had gone to sea, thus unfurnished and untried, 
seemed quite certain to founder by reason of its own inherent 
frailty, even if it should escape unharmed in the great conflict of 
nations, which acknowledged no claims of justice, and tolerated 
no pretensions of neutrality. Moreover, the territory possessed by 
the nation was inadequate to commercial exigencies and indis- 
pensable social expansion ; and yet no provision had been made 
for enlargement, nor for extending the political system over distant 
regions, inhabited or otherwise, which must inevitably be acquired. 
Nor could any such acquisition be made, without disturbing the 
carefully-adjusted balance of powers among the members of the 
Ci^'federacy. 

These diiBculties, Mr. Pkesident, although they grew less with 
time and by slow degrees, continued throughout the whole life of 
the statesman whose obsequies we are celebrating. Be it known, 
then, and I am sure that history will confirm the instruction, that 
Conservatism was the interest of the nation, aijd the responsibility 
of its rulers, during the period in which he flourished. He was 
ardent, bold, generous, and even ambitious ; and yet with a pro- 
found conviction of the true exigencies of the country, like Alex- 
ander Hamilton, he disciplined himself and trained a restless 
nation, that knew only self-control, to the rigorous practice of that 
often humiliating conservatism, which its welfare and security in 
that 2>articular crisis so imperiously demanded. 

It could not happen, sir, to any citizen to have acted alone, nor 
even to have acted always the most conspicuous part in a trying 
period so long protracted. Henry Clay, therefore, shared the 
responsibilities of Government with not only his proper contem- 
poraries, but also sm-vivors of the Revolution, as well as also many 
who will succeed himself. Delicacy forbids the naming of thoso 
who retain their places here, but we may, without impropriety, 
recall among his compeers a Senator of vast resources and inflex- 
ible resolve, who has recently withdrawn from this Chamber, but 



26 

I trust not altogether from public life, (Mr. Benton ;) and another, 
who, surpassing all his contemporaries within his country, and 
even throughout the world, in proper eloquence of the forum, now 
in autumnal years, for a second time dignifies and adorns the 
highest seat in the Executive Council, (Mr. Webster.) Passing 
by these eminent and noble men, the shades of Calhoun, John 
Quincy Adams, Jackson, Monroe, and Jefferson, rise up before us 
— statesmen, whose living and local fame has ripened already into 
historical and world-wide renown. 

Among geniuses so lofty as these, Heney Clay bore a part in 
regulating the constitutional freedom of political debate; estab- 
lishing that long-contested and most important line which divides 
the sovereignty of the several States from that of the States con- 
federated ; asserting the right of Neutrality, and vindicating it by 
a war against G-reat Britain, when that just but extreme measure 
became necessary ; adjusting the terms on which that perilous yet 
honorable contest was brought to a peaceful close ; perfecting the 
Army and the Navy, and the national fortifications ; settling the 
fiscal and financial policy of the Grovernment in more than one 
crisis of apparently threatened revolution ; asserting and calling 
into exercise the powers of the Government for making and im- 
proving internal communications between the States; arousing 
and encouraging the Spanish- American Colonies on this continent 
to thi-ow off the foreign yoke, and to organize Governments on 
principles congenial to our own, and thus creating external bul- 
warks for oiir own national defence; establishing equal and 
impartial peace and amity with all existing maritime Powers; 
and extending the constitutional organization of G-overnment over 
all the vast regions secured in his lifetime by purchase or by con- 
quest, whereby the pillars of the Republic have been removed from 
the banks of the St. Mary to the borders of the Rio G-rande, and 
from the margin of the Mississippi to the Pacific coast. We may 
not yet discuss here the wisdom of the several measures which 
have thus passed in review before us, nor of the positions which 
the deceased statesman assumed in regard to them, but we may, 
without offence, dwell upon the comprehensive results of them all. 

The Union exists in absolute integrity, and the Republican 
system is in complete and triumphant development. Without 



26 



having relinquished any part of their individuality, the States have 
more than doubled already, and are increasing in numbers and 
political strength and expansion, more rapidly than ever before. 
Without having absorbed any State, or having even encroached 
on any State, the Confederation has opened itself, so as to embrace 
all the new members who have come, and now, with capacity for 
further and indefinite enlargements, has become fixed, enduring, 
and per|)etual. Although it was doubted only half a century ago 
whether our j)olitical system could be maintained at all, and 
whether, if maintained, it could guarantee the peace and happiness 
of society, it stands now confessed by the world the form of Gov- 
ernment not only most adapted to Empire, but also most congenial 
with the constitution of Human Nature. 

When we consider that the nation has been conducted to this 
haven, not only through stormy seas, but altogether, also, without 
a course and without a star; and when we consider, moreover, the 
sum of happiness that has already been enjoyed by the American 
People, and still more the influence which the great achievement 
is exerting for the advancement and melioration of the condition 
of mankind, we see at once that it might have satisfied the highest 
ambition to have been, no matter how humbly, concerned in so 
great transaction. 

Certainly, sir, no one will assert that Henry Clay in that trans- 
action performed an obscure or even a common part. On the 
contrary, from the day on which he entered the public service un- 
til that on which he passed the gates of death, he was never a fol- 
lower, but always a leader; and he marshalled either the party 
which sustained or that which resisted every great measure, equal- 
ly in the Senate and among the people. He led where duty seem- 
ed to him to indicate, reckless whether he encountered one Presi- 
dent or twenty Presidents, whether he was opposed by factions or 
even by the whole peojile. Hence it has happened, that although 
that people arc not yet agreed among themselves on the wisdom 
of all, or perhaps of even any of his great measures, yet they are 
nevertheless unanimous in acknowledging that he was at once the 
greatest, the most faithful and the most reliable of their statesmen. 
Here the effort at discriminating praise of Henry Clay, in regard 



« 
27 

to his public policy, must stop in this place, even on this sad occa- 
sion which awakens the ardent liberality of his generous sui-vivors. 

But his personal qualities may be discussed without apprehen- 
sion. What were the elements of the success of that extraordina- 
ry man ? You, sir, knew him longer and better than I, and I 
would prefer to hear you speak of them. He was indeed elo- 
quent — all the world knows that. He held the keys to the hearts 
of his countrymen, and he turned the wards within them with a 
skill attained by no other master. 

But eloquence was nevertheless only an instrument, and one of 
many that he used. His conversation, his gesture, his very look, 
was persuasive, seductive, irresistible. And his appliance of all 
these was courteous, patient and indefatigable. Defeat only in- 
spired him with new resolution. He divided op}X)sition by his as- 
siduity of addi-ess, while he rallied and strengthened his own bands 
of supporters by the confidence of success which, feeling himself, 
he easily inspired among his followers. His affections were high, 
and pui-e, and generous, and the chiefest among them was that 
which the great Italian poet designated as the charity of native 
land. And in bim that charity was an enduring and over-power- 
ing enthusiasm, and it influenced all his sentiments and conduct, 
rendering him more impartial between conflicting interests and 
sections than any other statesman who has lived since the Revolu- 
tion. Thus with very great versatility of talent and the most 
catholic equality of favor, he identified every question, whether of 
domestic administration or foreign policy, with his own great 
name, and so became a perpetual Tribune of the people. He 
needed only to pronounce in favor of a measui-e or against it, here, 
and immediately popular enthusiasm, excited as by a magic wand, 
was felt, overcoming all opposition in the Senate Chamber. 

In this way he wrought a change in our political system, that I 
think was not foreseen by its founders. He converted this branch 
of the Legislature from a negative position, or one of equilibrium 
between the Executive and the House of Representatives, into the ac- 
tive ruling power of the Roimblic. Only time can disclose whether 
this great innovation shall be beneficent, or even permanent. 

Certainly, sir, the great lights of the Senate have set. The ob- 
scuration is not less palpable to the country than to us, who are 



28 



ieffc to grope our uncertain way here, as in a labyrinth, oppressed 
with self-distrust. The times, too, present new embarrassments. 
We are rising to another and a more sublime stage of natural pro- 
gress, — that of expanding wealth and rapid territorial aggrandize- 
ment. Our institutions throw a broad shadow across the St. Law- 
rence, and stretching beyond the valley of Mexico, reaches even to 
the plains of Central America; whUo the Sandwich Islands and 
the shores of China recognise its renovating influence. Wherever 
that influence is felt, a desire for protection under those institu- 
tions is awakened. Expansion seems to be regulated, not by any 
diificulties of resistance, but by the moderation which results from 
our own internal constitution. No one knows how rapidly that 
restraint may give way. Who can tell how far or how fast it 
ought to yield? Commerce has brought the ancient conti- 
nents near to us, and created necessities for new positions — per- 
haps connections or colonies there — and with the trade and 
friendship of the elder nations their conflicts and collisions are 
brought to our doors and to our hearts. Our sympathy kindles, 
our indifference extinguishes the fire of freedom in foreign lands. 
Before we shall be fully conscious that a change is going on in 
Em-ope, we may find ourselves once more divided by that eternal 
line of separation that leaves on the one side those of om' citizens 
who obey the impulses of sympathy, while on the other are found 
those who submit only to the counsels of prudence. Even pru- 
dence will soon be required to decide whether distant regions. East 
and West, shall come under our own protection, or be left to ag- 
grandize a rapidly spreading and hostile domain of despotism. 

Sir, who among us is equal to these mighty questions ? I fear 
there is no one. Nevertheless, the example of Henry Clay re- 
mains for our instruction. His genius has passed to the realms of 
light, but his virtues still live here for our emulation. With them 
there will remain also the protection and favor of the Most High, 
if by the practice of justice and the maintenance of freedom we 
Shall deserve it. Let, then, the bier pass on. With sorrow, but 
not without hope, we will follow the revered form that it bears to 
its final resting place ; and then, when that grave opens at our feet 
to receive such an inestimable treasure, we will invoke the God of 



29 

our fathers to send tts new guides, like him that is now withdrawn, 
and give us wisdom to obey their instructions. 

Mr. JONES, of Iowa, said : 

Mr. Peesident : Of the vast number who mourn the departure 
of the great man whose voice has ,so often been heard in this Hall, 
I have peculiar cause to regret that dispensation which has remov- 
ed him from among us. He was the guardian and director of my 
collegiate days ; four of his sons were my coUegemates and my 
warm friends. BIy intercom-se with the father was that of a youth 
and a friendly adviser. I shall never cease to feel grateful to him 
— ^to his now heart-stricken and bereaved widow and children, for 
their many kindnesses to me during four or five years of my life. 
I had the pleasure of renewing my acquaintance with him, first, as 
a delegate in Congi-ess, while he was a member of this body from 
1835 to 1839, and again in 1848, as a member of this branch of 
Congress ; and dm-ing the whole of which period, some eight years, 
none but the most kindly feeling existed between us. 

As an humble and unimportant Senator, it was my fortune to 
co-operate with him throughout the whole of the exciting session 
of 1849-^50 — the labor and excitement of which is said to have 
precipitated his decease. That co-operation did not end with the 
accordant vote on this floor, but, in consequence of the unyielding 
opposition to the series of measures known as the "compromise," 
extended to many private meetings held by its friends, at all of 
which Mr. Clay was present. And whether in public or private 
life, he everywhere continued to inspire me with the most exalted 
estimate of his patriotism and statesmanship. Never shall I for- 
get the many ardent appeals he made to Senators, in and out of 
the Senate, in favor of the settlement of our then unhappy sec- 
tional differences. 

Immediately after the close of that memorable session of Con- 
gress, during •n'hich the nation beheld his great and almost super- 
human efforts upon this floor to sustain the wise counsels of the 
" Father of his Country," I accompanied him home fo Ashland, at 
his invitation, to revisit the place whei'e my happiest days had 
been spent, with the friends who there continued to reside. Dur- 
ing that, to me, most agreeable and instructive journey^ in many 



t 



30 

conversations he evinced the utmost solicitude for the welfare and 
honor of the Republic, all tending to show that ho believed the 
happiness of the people and the cause of liberty throughout the 
world depended upon the continuance of our glorious Union, and 
the avoidance ef those sectional dissensions which could but alien- 
ate the affections of one portion of the people from another. With 
the sincerity and fervor of a true patriot, he warned his compan- 
ions in that journey to withhold all aid from men who labored, 
and from every cause which tended, to sow the seeds of disunion 
in the land ; and to oppose such, he declared himself willing to 
forego all the ties and associations of mere party. 

At a subsequent period, sir, this friend of my youth, at my 
earnest and repeated entreaties, consented to take a sea voyage 
from New York to Havana. He remained at the latter place a 
fortnight, and then returned by New Orleans to Ashland. That 
excursion by sea, he assured me, contributed much to relieve him 
from the sufferings occasioned by the disease which has just ter- 
minated his eventful and glorious life. Would to Heaven that he 
could have been persuaded to abandon his duties as a Senator, and 
to have remained dui-ing the past winter and spring upon that Is- 
land of Cuba ! The country would not now, perhaps, have been 
called to mourn his loss. 

In some matters of policy connected with the administration of 
our General Government, I have disagreed with him, yet the pu- 
rity and sincerity of his motives I never doubted ; and as a true 
lover of his country, as an honorable and honest man, I trust his 
example will be reverenced and followed by the men of this, and 
of succeeding generations. 



Mr. BROOKE said: — 
Mr. President : As an ardent, personal admirer and political 
friend of the distinguished dead, I claim the privilege of adding 
my humble tribute of respect to his memory, and of joining in the 
general expression of sorrow that has gone forth from this Cham- 
ber. Death, at all times, is an instructive monitor, as well as a 
mournful messenger ; but when his fatal shaft hath stricken down 
the great in intellect and renown, how doubly impressive the 
lesson that it brings home to the heart, that the grave is the com- 



31 

mon lot of all — the great leveller of all earthly distinctions ! But 
at the same time we are taught, that iu one sense, the good and 
great can never die ; for the memory of their vii'tues and their 
bright example will live through all coming time, in an immor- 
tality that blooms beyond the grave. The consolation of this 
thought may calm our sorrow ; and, in the language of one of our 
own poets, it may be asked — 

" Why weep ye, then, for him, who having run 

The bound of man's appointed years, at last. 
Life's blessings all enjoyed, life's labors done, 

Serenely to his final rest has pass'd ; 
While the soft memory of liis virtues yet 
Lingers, like twilight hues when the bright sun has set ?" 

It will be doing no injustice, sir, to the living or the dead, to 
say, that no better specimen of the true American character can 
be found in our history than that of Mr. Clay. With no adven- 
titious advantages of birth or fortune, he won his way by the 
efforts of his own genius to the highest distinction and honor. 
Ardently attached to the principles of civil and religious liberty, 
patriotism was with him both a passion and a sentiment — a pas- 
sion that gave energy to his ambition, and a sentiment that per- 
vaded all his thoughts and actions, concentrating them upon his 
country as the idol of his heart. The bold and manly frankness 
in the expression of his opinions which always characterized him, 
has often been the subject of remark ; and in all his victories it 
may be truly said, he never " stooped to conquer." In his long 
and brilliant political career, personal considerations never for a 
single instant caused him to swerve from the strict line of duty, 
and none have ever doubted his deep sincerity in that memorable 
expression to Mr. Preston, " Sir, I had rather be right than be 
President." 

This is not the time nor occasion, sir, to enter into a detail of 
the public services of Mr. Clay, interwoven, as they are, with the 
history of the country for half a century ; but I cannot refrain from 
adverting to the last crowning act of his glorious life — his great 
effort in the Thirty-jBrst Congress, for the preservation of the peace 
and integrity of this great Republic, as it was this effort that shat- 
tered his bodily strength, and hastened the consummation of 



tf^^msaaw^mmm 



32 

death. The Union of the States, as being essential to oui* pros- 
perity and hajipiness, was the paramount proposition in his political 
creed, and the slightest symptom of danger to its perpetuity filled 
him with alarm, and called forth all the energies of his body and 
mind. In his earlier life he had met this danger and overcome it. 
In the conflict of contending factions it again appeared ; and com- 
ing forth from the repose of private life, to which age and infirmity 
had carried him, with unabated strength of intellect, he again 
entered upon the arena of political strife, and again success 
crowned his efforts, and peace and harmony were restored to a 
distracted people. But unequal to the mighty struggle, his bodily 
strength sank beneath it, and he retired from the field of his glory 
to yield up his life as a holy sacrifice to his beloved country. It 
has well been said, that peace has its victories as well as war ; and 
how bright upon the page of history will be the record of this 
great victory of intellect, of reason, and of moral suasion, over the 
spirit of discord and sectional animosities ! 

We this day, Mr. President, commit his memory to the regard 
and affection of his admiring countrymen. It is a consolation to 
them, and to us, to know that he died in full possession of his 
glorious intellect, and, what is better, in the enjoyment of that 
"peace which the world can neither give nor take away." He 
sank to rest as the fidl-orbed king of day, unshorn of a single 
beam, or rather like the planet of morning, his brightness was but 
eclipsed by the opening to him of a more full and perfect day — 

" No wrrning of fire, no paling of ray, 
But rising, still rising, as passing away. 
Farewell, gallant eagle, tliou'rt buried in light — 
God speed thee to Heaven, lost star of our night." 

The resolutions submitted by Mr. Underwood were then unan- 
imously agreed tOw 

Ordered, That the Secretary communicate these resolutions to 
tlie House of Representatives. 

On motion, by jMr. Underwood, 

Resolved, That, as an additional mark of respect to the memory 
of the deceased, the Senate do now adjourn. 



MMt jf T '* i»»pii> n ^*»^ > I ■» — aiW«^*iW» 



% 



PKOCEEDINaS 



IN THE 



HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 



IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

Washington, June 30, 1852. 

The Journal of yesterday having been read — 
A message was received from the Senate, by Asbtjry Dickins, 
Esq., its Secretary, communicating information of the death of 
Henry Clay, late Senator from the State of Kentucky, and the 
proceedings of the Senate thereon. 

The resolutions of the Senate having been read — 

Mr. BRECKINRIDGE rose and said : — 

Mr. Speaker: I rise to perform the melancholy duty of an- 
nouncing to this body the death of Henry Clay, late a Senator in 
Congress from the Commonwealth of Kentucky. 

Mr. Clay expired at his lodgings in this city yesterday morning, 
at seventeen minutes past eleven o'clock, in the seventy-sixth year 
of his age. His noble intellect was unclouded to the last After 
protracted sufferings, he passed away without pain ; and so gently 
did the spirit leave his frame, that the moment of departure was 
not observed by the friends who watched at his bedside. His last 
hours were cheered by the presence of an aifectionate son ; and he 
dfed surrounded by friends who, during his long illness, had done 
all that affection could suggest to soothe his sufferings. 

Although this sad event has been expected for many weeks, the 
shock it produced, and the innumerable tributes of respect to his 
memory exhibited on every side, and in every form, prove the depth 
of the public sorrow, and the greatness of the public loss. 







w 



Imperishably associated as his name has been for fifty years 
with every great event afi'ecting the fortunes of om* country, it is 
difficult to realize that he is indeed gone for ever. It is difficult to 
feel that we shall see no more his noble form within these walls — 
that we shall hear no more his patriot tones, now rousing his coun- 
trymen to vindicate their rights against a foreign foe, now imploring 
them to preserve concord among themselves. We shall me him 
no more. The memory and the fruits of his services alone remain 
to us. Amidst the general gloom the Capitol itself looks desolate, 
as if the genius of the place had departed. Already the intelli- 
gence has reached almost every quarter of the Republic, and a 
great people mourn with us, to-day, the death of their most illus- 
trious citizen. Sympathizing, as we do, deeply, with his family 
and friends, yet private aflliction is absorbed in the general sorrow. 
The spectacle of a whole community lamenting the loss of a great 
man, is far more touching than any manifestation of private grief. 
In speaking of a loss which is national, I will not attempt to describe 
the universal bui-st of grief with which Kentucky will receive these 
tidings. The attempt would be vain to depict the gloom that will 
cover her people, when they know that the pillar of fire is removed, 
which has guided tlieir footsteps for the life of a generation. 

It is known to the country that, from the memorable session of 
1849-50, Mr. Clay's health gradually declined. Although several 
years of his Senatorial term remained, he did not propose to con- 
tinue in the public service longer than the present session. He 
came to Washington chiefly to defend, if it should become neces- 
sary, the measures of adjustment, to the adoption of which he so 
largely contributed ; but the condition of his health did not allow 
him, at any time, to participate in the discussions of the Senate. 
Through the winter he was confined almost wholly to his room, 
with slight changes in his condition, but gradually losing the rem- 
nant of his strength. Through the long and dreary winter he 
conversed much and cheerfully with his friends, and expressed "a 
deep interest in public affairs. Although he did not expect a 
restoration to health, he cherished the hope that the mUd season 
of spring would bring to him strength enough to return to Ash- 
land, and die in the bosom of his family. But, alas ! spring, that 
brings life to all nature, brought no life nor hope to him. After 



f 



^5 

the month of March his vital powers rapidly wasted, and for weeks 
he lay patiently awaiting the stroke of death. But the approach 
of the destroyer had no terrors for him. No clouds overhung his 
future. He met the end with composure, and his pathway to the 
grave was brightened by the immortal hopes which spring from 
the Christian faith. 

Not long before his death, having just returned from Kentucky, 
I bore to him a token of affection from his excellent wife. Never 
can I forget his appearance, his manner, or his words. After 
speaking of his family, his friends, and his country, he changed 
the conversation to his own future, and looking on me with his 
fine eye undimmed, and his voice full of its original compass and 
melody, he said, " I am not afraid to die, sir. I have hope, faith, 
and some confidence. I do not think any man can be entirely 
certain in regard to his future state, but I have an abiding trust 
in the merits and mediation of our Saviour." It will assuage the 
grief of his family to know that he looked hopefully beyond the 
tomb, and a Christian people will rejoice to hear that such a man, 
in his last hours, reposed with simplicity and confidence upon the 
promises of the Gospel. 

It is the custom, on occasions like this, to speak of the parentage 
and childhood of the deceased, and to foUow him, step by step, 
through life. I will not attempt to relate even all the great events 
of Mr. Clay's life, because they are familiar to the whole country, 
and it would be needless to enumerate a long list of public services 
which form a part of American history. 

Beginning life as a friendless boy, with few advantages, save 
those conferred by nature, while yet a minor he left Virginia, the 
State of his birth, and commenced the practice of law at Lexing- 
ton, in Kentucky. At a bar remarkable for its numbers and 
talent, Mr. Clay soon rose to the first rank. At a very early age 
he was elected from the county of Fayette to the General Assem- 
bly of Kentucky, and was the Speaker of that body. Coming into 
the Senate of the United States, for the first time, in 1806, he 
entered upon a parliamentary career the most brilliant and suc- 
cessful in our annals. From that time he remained habitually in 
the public eye. As a Senator, as a member of this House and its 
Speaker, as a Kepresentative of his country abroad, and as a high 



# 



T 

officer in tte Executive department of the Government, he was 
intimately connected for fifty years mth every great measure of 
American policy. Of the mere party measures of this period I do 
not propose to speak. Many of them have passed away, and are 
remembered only as the occasions for the great intellectual efforts 
which marked their discussion. Concerning others, opinions are 
still divided. They will go into history, with the reasons on either 
side rendered by the greatest intellects of the time. 

As a leader in a deliberative body, Mr. Clay had no equal in 
America. In him, intellect, person, eloquence, and courage, united 
to form a character fit to command. He fired with his own enthu- 
siasm, and controlled by his amazing will, individuals and masses. 
No reverse could crush his spirit, nor defeat reduce him to despair. 
Equally erect and dauntless in prosperity and adversity, when suc- 
cessful, he moved to the accomplishment of his purposes with se- 
vere resolution ; when defeated, he rallied his broken bands around 
him, and from his eagle eye shot along their ranks the contagion 
of his own courage. Destined for a leader, he everywhere assert- 
ed his destiny. In his long and eventful life he came in contact 
with men of all ranks and professions, but he never felt that he 
was in the presence of a man superior to himself In the assem- 
blies of the people, at the bar, in the Senate — everywhere within 
the circle of his personal presence he assumed and maintained a 
position of pre-eminence. 

But the supremacy of Mr. Clat, as a party leader, was not his 
only, nor his highest title to renown. That title is to be found in 
the purely patriotic spirit which, on great occasions, always sig- 
nalized his conduct. We have had no statesman, who, in periods of 
real and imminent public peril, has exhibited a more genuine and 
enlarged patriotism than Henry Clay. Whenever a question 
presented itself actually threatening the existence of the Union, 
Mr. Clay, rising above the passions of the hour, always exerted 
his powers to solve it peacefully and honorably. Although more 
liable than most men, from his impetuous and ardent nature, to 
feel strongly the passions common to us all, it was his rare foculty 
to be able to subdue them in a great crisis, and to hold toward all 
sections of the confederacy the language of concord and brotherhood. 



37 

Sir, it will be a proud pleasui-e to every true American heart to 
remember the great occasions when Mr. Clay has displayed a sub- 
lime patriotism — when the ill-temper engendered by the times, 
and the miserable jealousies of the day, seemed to have been driven 
from his bosom by the expulsive power of nobler feelings — when 
every throb of his heart was given to his country, every effort of 
his intellect dedicated to her service. Who does not remember 
the three periods when the American system of Government was 
exposed to iti, ^'^'verest trials ; and who does not know that when 
history shall relate the struggle which preceded, and the dangers 
which were averted by the Missouri compromise, the Tariff com- 
promise of 1832, and the adjustment of 1850, the same pages will 
record the genius, the eloquence, and the patriotism of Henry 
Clay? 

Nor was it in Mr. Clay's nature to lag behind until measures 
of adjustment were matured, and then come forward to swell a ma- 
jority. On the contrary, like a bold and real statesman, he was 
ever among the first to meet the peril, and hazard his fame upon 
the remedy. It is fresh in the memory of us all that, when lately 
the fury of sectional discord threatened to sever the confederacy, 
Mr. Clay, though withdrawn from public life, and oppressed by 
the burden of years, came back to the Senate — the theatre of his 
glory — and devoted the remnant of his strength to the sacred 
duty of preserving the union of the States. 

With characteristic courage he took the lead in proposing a 
scheme of settlement. But while he was willing to assume the re- 
sponsibility of proposing a plan, he did not, with petty ambition, 
insist upon its adoption to the exclusion of other modes ; but, tak- 
ing his own as a starting point for discussion and practical action, 
he nobly labored with his compatriots to change and improve it in 
such form as to make it an acceptable adjustment. Throughout 
the long and arduous struggle, the love of country expelled from 
his bosom the spirit of selfishness, and Mr. Clay proved, for the 
thix'd time, that though he was ambitious and loved glory, he had 
no ambition to mount to fame on the confusions of his country. 
And this conviction is lodged in the hearts of the people ; ihe par- 
ty measures and the party passions of former times have not, for 
several years, interposed between Mr. Clay and the masses of his 



9 



38 



countryTnen. After 1850, he seemed to feel that his mission was 
accoiuplished , and, during the same period, the regards and affec- 
tions of the American people have been attracted to him in a re- 
markable degree. For many months, the warmest feelings, the 
deepest anxieties of aU parties, centered upon the dying statesman ; 
the glory of his great actions shed a mellow lustre on his declining 
years ; and to fill the measure of his fame, his countrymen, weaving 
for him the laurel wreath, with common hands, did bind it about 
his venerable brows, and send him crowned, to history. 

The life of Mr. Clay, sir, is a striking example of the abiding 
fame which surely awaits the direct and candid statesman. The 
entire absence of equivocation or disguise, in aU his acts, was his 
master-key to the popular heart; for while the people will forgive 
the errors of a bold and open nature, he sins past forgiveness, who 
deliberately deceives them. Hence Mr. Clat, though often de- 
feated in his measures of policy, always secured the respect of his 
opponents without losing the confidence of his friends. He never 
paltered in a double sense. The country was never in doubt as to 
his opinions or his pui-poses. In aU the contests of his time, his 
position on great public questions, was as clear as the sun in a 
cloudless sky. Sir, standing by the grave of this great man, and 
considering these things, how contemptible does appear the mere 
legerdemain of politics ! What a reproach is his life on that false 
policy which would trifle with a great and upright people ! If I 
were to write his epitaph, I would inscribe, as the highest eidogy, 
on the stone which shall mark his resting-place, " Here lies a man 
who was in the public service for fifty years, and never attempted 
to deceive his countrymen." 

While the youth of America should imitate his noble qualities, 
they may take courage from his career, and note the high proof it 
affords that, under om* equal institutions, the avenues to honor are 
open to all. Mr. Clay rose by the force of his own genius, unaid- 
ed by power, patronage, or wealth. At an age when our young 
men are usually advanced to the higher schools of learning, pro- 
vided only with the rudiments of an English education, he turned 
his steps to the West, and amidst the rude collisions of a border- 
life, matui'ed a character whose highest exhibitions were destined 
to mark eras in his country's history. Beginning en the frontiers 



89 

of American civilization, tlie orphan boy, supported only by tlao 
consciousness of liis own powers, and by the confidence of the 
people, surmounted all the barriers of adverse fortune, and won a 
glorious name m the annals of his country. Let the generous 
youth, fired with honorable ambition, remember that -he American 
system of government offers on every hand bounties to merit. If, 
like Clay, orphanage, obscurity, poverty, shall oppress him ; yet if, 
like Clay, he feels the Promethean spark within, let him remember 
that this country, like a generous mother, extends her arms to 
welcome and to cherish every one of her children whose genius 
and worth may promote her prosperity or increase her renown. 

Mr. Speaker, the signs of woe around us, and the general voice, 
announce that another great man has fallen. Our consolation is 
that he was not taken in the vigor of his manhood, but sank into 
the grave at the close of a long and illustrious career. The great 
statesmen who have filled the largest space in the public eye, one 
by one are passing away. Of the three great leaders of the Sen- 
ate, one alone remains, and he must follow soon. We shall wit- 
ness no more their intellectual struggles in the American Forum ; 
but the monuments of their genius will be cherished as the com- 
mon property of the people, and their names will continue to confer 
dignity and renown upon their country. 

Not less illustrious than the greatest of these will be the name 
of Clay — a name pronounced with pride by Americans in every 
quarter of the globe ; a name to be remembered while history shall 
record the struggles of modern Glreece for freedom, or the spirit 
of liberty biarn in the South American bosom ; a living and im- 
mortal name — a name that would descend to posterity without the 
aid of letters, borne by tradition from generation to generation. 
Every memorial of such a man will possess a meaning and a value 
to his countrymen. His tomb will be a hallowed spot. Great 
memories will cluster there, and his countrymen, as they visit it, 
may well exclaim — 



' Sucb graves as Ms are pilgrim sbrines, 
Shrines to no creed or code confined ; 
Tlie Delphian vales, tlie Palestines, 
The Meccas of the mind." 



40 

Mr. Speaker, I offer the following resolutions : — 

Resolved, That tlie House of Representatives of the United States has received, with the 
deepest sensibility, intelligence of the death of Henry Clay. 

Resolved, That Uie ofRcers and members of tlie House of Representatives will wear the 
usual badge of mourning for thirty days, as a testimony of Uie profound respect this House 
entertains for the memory of the deceased. 

Resolved, That tlie officers and members of the House of Representatives, in a body, will 
attend the funeral of Henry Clay, on the day appointed for that purpose by the Senate of 
tlie United States. 

Resolved, That the proceedings of this House, in relation to the death of Henry Clay, 
be communicated to the family of the deceased by tlie Clerk. 

Resolved, That, as a furtlier mark of respect for tlie memory of the deceased, this House 
do now adjourn. 



Mr. EWING rose and said : — 

A noble heart has ceased to beat for ever. A long life of bril- 
liant and self-devoted public service is finished at last. We now 
stand at its conclusion, looking back through the changeful history 
of that life to its beginning, contemporaneous with the very birth 
of the Republic, and its varied events mingle, in our hearts and 
our memories, with the triumphs and calamities, the weakness and 
the power, the adversity and prosperity, of a country we love so 
much. As we contemplate this sad event, in this place, the shadows 
of the past gather over us ; the memories of events long gone crowd 
upon us, and the shades of departed patriots seem to hover about 
us, and wait to receive into their midst the spirit of one who was 
worthy to be a co-laborer with them in a common cause, and to 
share in the rewards of their virtues. Henceforth he must be to 
us as one of them. 

They say he was ambitious. If so, it was a grievous fault, and 
grievously has he answered it. He has found in it naught but 
disappointment. It has but served to aggravate the mortification 
of his defeats, and furnish an additional lustre to the triumph of his 
foes. Those who come after us may, aye, they will, inquire why 
his statue stands not among the statues of those whom men thought 
ablest and worthiest to govern. 

But his ambition was a high and holy feeling, unselfish, mag- 
nanimous. Its aspirations were for his country's good, and its 
triumph was his country's prosperity. Whether in honor or re- 
proach, in triumph or defeat, that heart of his never throbbed with 
one pulsation, save for her honor and her welfare. Turn to him 



41 

in that last best deed, and crowning glory of a life so full of public 
service and of honor, when his career of personal ambition was 
finished for ever. Rejected again and again by his countrymen ; 
just abandoned by a party which would scarce have had an exist- 
ence without his genius, his courage, and his labors, that great 
heart, ever firm and defiant to the assaults of his enemies, but 
defenceless against the ingratitude of friends, doubtless wrung with 
the bitterest mortification of his life — then it was, and under such 
circumstances as these, the gathering storm rose upon his country. 
All eyes turned to him ; all voices called for those services which, 
in the hour of prosperity and security, they had so carelessly 
rejected. With no misanthropic chagrin; with no morose, selfish 
resentment, he forgot all but his country, and that country endan- 
gered. He returns to the scene of his labors and his fame which 
he had thought to have left for ever. A scene — that American 
Senate Chamber — clothed in no gorgeous drapery, shrouded in no 
superstitious awe or ancient reverence for hereditary power, but to 
a reflecting American mind more full of interest, or dignity, and 
of grandeur than any spot on this broad earth, not made holy by 
religion's consecrating seal. See him as he enters there, trem- 
blingly, but hopefully, upon the last, most momentous, perhaps 
most doubtful conflict of his life. Sir, many a gay tournament has 
been more dazzling to the eye of fancy, more gorgeous and impos- 
ing in the display of jewelry and cloth of gold, in the sound of 
heralds' trumpets, in the grand array of princely beauty and of 
royal pride. Many a battle-field has trembled beneath a more 
ostentatious parade of human power, and its conquerors have been 
crowned with laurels, honored with triumphs, and apotheosised 
amid the demigods of history; but to the thoughtful, hopeful, 
philanthropic student of the annals of his race, never was there a 
conflict in which such dangers were threatened, such hopes im- 
periled, or the hero of which deserved a warmer gratitude, a nobler 
triumph, or a prouder monument. 

Sir, from that long, anxious, and exhausting conflict, he never 
rose again. In that last battle for his country's honor and his 
country's safety, he received the mortal wound which laid him low, 
and we now mourn the death of a martyred patriot. 



X 



42 



But nerer, in all the grand drama wMcli the story of his life 
arrays, never has he presented a sublimer or a more touching spec- 
tacle than in those last days of his decline and death. Broken 
with the storms of State, wounded and scathed in many a fiery 
conflict, that aged, worn, and decayed body, in such mournful con- 
trast with the never-dying strength of his giant spu-it, he seemed 
a proud and sacred, though a crumbling monument of past glory. 
Standing among us, like some ancient colossal ruin amid the 
degenerate and more diminutive structures of modern times, its 
vast proportions magnified by the contrast, he reminded us of those 
days when there were giants in the land, and we remembered that 
even then there was none whose prowess could withstand his arm. 
To watch him in that slow decline, yielding with dignity, and, as 
it were, inch by inch, to that last enemy, as a hero yields to a con- 
quering foe, the glorious light of his intellect blazing still in all 
its wonted brilliancy, and setting at defiance the clouds that vainly 
attempted to obscure it, he was more full of interest than in the 
day of his glory and his power. There are some men whose 
brightest inteUectual emanations rise so little superior to the 
instincts of the animal, that we are led fearfully to doubt that 
cherished truth of the soul's immortality, which, even in despair, 
men press to their doubting hearts. But it is in the death of such 
a man as he that we are reassured by the contemplation, of a 
kindred, though superior, spu'it, of a soul which, immortal, like 
his fame, knows no old age, no decay, no death. 

The wondrous light of his unmatched intellect may have dazzled 
a world ; the eloquence of that inspired tongue may have en- 
chanted millions, but there are few who have sounded tlie depths 
of that noble heart. To see him in sickness and in health, in joy 
and in sadness, in the silent watches of the night and in the busy 
daytime — this it was to know and love him. To see the impetuous 
torrent of that resistless will; the hurricane of those passions 
hushed in peace, breathe calm and gently as a summer zephyr ; to 
feel the gentle pressure of that hand in the grasp of friendship, 
which, in the rage of fiery conflict, would hurl scorn and defiance 
at his foe; to see that eagle eye, which oft would burn with 
patriotic ardor, or flash with the lightning of his anger, beam with 
the kindliest expressions of tenderness and a0"ection — then it was, 



43 

and tlien alone, we could learn to know and feel that that heart 
was warmed hy the same sacred fire from above which enkindled 
the light of his resplendent intellect. In the death of such a man 
even patriotism itself might pause, and for a moment stand aloof 
while friendship shed a tear of sorrow upon his hier. 

" His life was gentle ; and the elements 
So mix'd in him, that Nature might stand up 
And say to all the world, This was a man .'" 

But who can estimate his country's loss ? What tongue portray 
the desolation which in this hour throughout this broad land hangs 
like a gloomy pall over his grief-stricken countrymen? How 
poorly can words like mine translate the eloquence of a whole 
people's grief for a patriot's death. For a nation's loss let a nation 
mourn. For that stupendous calamity to our country and man- 
kind, be the heavens hung with black; let the wailing elements 
chant his dirge, and the universal heart of man throb with one 
common pang of grief and anguish. 

Mr. CASKIE said: — 

Mr. Speaker : Unwell as I am, I must try to lay a single 
laurel leaf in that open coffin which is already garlanded by the 
eloquent tributes to the illustrious departed, which have been heard 
in this now solemn Hall ; for I come, sir, from the district of his 
birth. I represent on this floor that old Hanover so proud of her 
Henrys — her Patrick Henry and her Henby Clay. I speak for 
a People among whom he has always had as earnest and devoted 
friends as were ever the grace and glory of a patriot and states- 
man. 

I shall attempt no sketch of his life. That you have had from 
other and abler hands than mine. Till yesterday that life was, of 
his own free gift, the property of his country ; to-day it belongs to 
her history. It is known to all, and will not be forgotten. Con- 
stant, stern opponent of his political school, as has been my State, 
I say for her, that no where in this broad land are his great qual- 
ities more admired, or is his death more mourned, than in Virginia. 
Well may this be so ; for she is his mother, and he was her son. 



44 

Mr. Speaker, wlieu I remember the party strifes in which he 
was so much mingled, and through Avhich we all more or less have 
passed, and then survey this scene, and think how far, as the light- 
ning has borne the news that he is gone, half-masted flags are 
drooping and church bells are tolling, and hearts are sorrowing, I 
can but feel that it is good for man to die. For when Death enters, 
! how the unkindnesses, and jealousies, and rivalries of life do 
vanish, and how like incense from an altar do peace, and friend- 
ship, and all the sweet charities of our nature, rise around the 
corpse which was once a man ! And of a truth, Mr. Speaker, never 
was more of veritable noble manhood cased in mortal mould than 
was found in him to whose memory this brief and humble, yet true 
and heartfelt, tribute is paid. But his eloquent voice is hushed, 
his high heart is stilled. " Like a shock of corn fully ripe, he has 
been gathered to his fathers." "With more than three score years 
and ten upon him, and honors clustered thick about him, in the 
full possession of unclovided intellect, and all the consolations of 
Christianity, he has met the fate which is evitable by none. 
Lamented by all his countrymen, his name is bright on Fame's 
immortal roll. He has finished his course, and he has his crown. 
What more fruit can life bear ? What can it give that Henry 
Clay has not gained ? 

Then, Mr. Speaker, around his tomb should be heard, not only 
the dirge that wails his loss, but the jubilant anthem which sounds 
that on the world's battle- field another victory has been won — 
another iiicontestahle greatness achieved. 

Mr. CHANDLER, of Pennsylvania, said: — 
Mr. Speaker : It would seem as if the solemn invocation of the 
honorable gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Ewing) was receiving 
an early answer, and that the heavens are hung in black, and the 
wailing elements are singing the funeral dirge of Henry Clay. 
Amid this elemental gloom, and the distress which pervades the 
nation at the death of Henry Clay, private grief should not obtrude 
itself upon notice, nor personal anguish seek for utterance. Silence 
is the best exponent of individual sorrow, and the heart that 
knoweth its own bitterness shrinks from an exposition of its 
afiliction. 



45 



Could I have consulted my own feelings on the event wliicli 
occupies the attention of the House at the present naoment, I should 
even have forborne attendance here, and, in the solitude and 
silence of my chamber, have mused upon the terrible lesson which 
has been administered to the people and the nation. But I repre- 
sent a constituency who justly pride themselves upon the unwaver- 
ing attachment they have ever felt and manifested to Henrt Clay 
— a constant, pervading, hereditary love. The , son has taken 
up the father's affection, and amid all the professions of political 
attachments to others, whom the accidents of party have made 
prominent, and the success of party has made powerful, true to his 
own instincts, and true to the sanctified legacy of his father, he has 
placed the name of Henry Clay forward and pre-eminent, as the 
exponent of what is greatest in statesmanship and purest in patriot- 
ism. And even, sir, when party fealty caused other attachments 
to be avowed for party uses, the preference was limited to the 
occupancy of office, and superiority admitted for Clay in all that 
is reckoned above 2)arty estimation. 

Nor ought I to forbear to add that, as the senior member of the 
delegation which represents my Commonwealth, I am requested to 
utter the sentiments of the people of Pennsylvania at large, who 
yield to no portion of this great Union in their appreciation of the 
talents, their reverence for the lofty patriotism, their admiration of 
the statesmanship, and hereafter their love of the memory of 
Henry Clay. 

I cannot, therefore, be silent on this occasion without injustice 
to the affections of my constituency, even though I painfully feel 
how inadequate to the' reverence and love my people have toward 
that great statesman must be all that I have to utter on this 
mournful occasion. 

I know not, Mr. Chairman,, where now the nation is to find the 
men she needs in peril ; either other calls than those of politics are 
holding in abeyance the talents which the nation may need, or else 
a generation is to pass undistinguished by the greatness of our 
statesmen. Of the noble minds that have swayed the Senate one 
yet survives in the maturity of powerful intellect, carefully disci- 
plined, and nobly exercised. May He who has thus far blessed 
our nation, spare to her and the world that of which the world 



46 

must alw^ays envy our country tlie possession ! But my business 
is with the dead. 

The biography of Henry Clay, from his childhood up^vard, is 
too familiar to every American for me to trespass on the time of 
this House, by a reference directly thereto; and the honorable 
gentlemen who have preceded me have, with aifectionate hand and 
appropriate delicacy, swept away the dust which nearly fourscore 
years have scattered over a part of the record, and have made our 
pride greater in his life, and our grief more poignant at his death, 
by showing some of those passages which attract respect to our 
republican institutions, of which Mr. Clay's whole life was the able 
support, and the most successM illustration. 

It would, then, be a work of supererogation for me to renew that 
effort, though inquiry into the life and conduct of Henry Clay 
would present new themes for private eulogy, new grounds for 
public gratitude. 

How rare is it, Mr. Speaker, ^at the great man, living, can 
with confidence rely on extensive personal friendship, or dying, 
think to awaken a sentiment of regret beyond that which includes 
the public loss or the disappointment of individual hopes. Yet, 
sir, the message which yesterday went forth from this city that 
Henry Clay was dead, brought sorrow, personal, private, special 
sorrow, to the hearts of thousands ; each of whom felt that from his 
own love for, his long attachment to, his disinterested hopes in 
Henry Clay, he had a particular sorrow to cherish and express, 
which weighed upon his heart separate from the sense of national 
loss. 

No man, Mr. Speaker, in our nation had the art so to identify 
himself with public measures of the most momentous character, and 
to maintain at the same time almost universal affection, like that 
great statesman. His business, from his boyhood, was with na- 
tional concerns, and he dealt with them as with familiar things. 
And yet his sympathies were with individual interests, enterprises, 
affections, joys, and sorrows; and while every patriot bowed in 
humble deference to his lofty attainments and heartfelt gratitude 
for his national services, almost every man in this vast Kcpublic 
knew that the great statesman was, in feeling and experience, iden- 
tified with his own position. Hence the universal love of the 



^ 



41 

people ; heace their enthusiasoi in all times for his fame. Hence, 
sir, their present grief. 

Many other public men of our country have distinguished them- 
selyes and brought honor to the nation by superiority in some pe- 
culiar branch of public service, 1)ut it seems to have been the gift of 
Mr. CiiAT to have acquired pecuHar eminence in every path of duty 
he was called to tread. In the earnestness of debate, which great 
public interests and distinguished opposing talents excited in this 
House, he had no superior in energy, force, or effect. Yet, as the 
presiding officer, by blandness of language and firmness of purpose, 
he soothed and made orderly ; and thus, by official dignity, he 
commanded the respect which energy had secured to him on the 
floor. . 

Wherever official or social duties demanded an exercise of his 
power there was a pre-eminence which seemed prescriptively his 
ovra. In the lofty debate of the Senate and the stirring harangues 
to popular assemblages, he was the orator of the nation and of the 
people; and the sincerity of purpose and the unity of design 
evinced in all he said or did, fixed in the public mind a confidence 
strong and expansive as the affections he had won. 

Year after year, sir, has Heney Clay been achieving the work 
of the mission with which he was intrusted ; and it was only when 
the warmest wishes of his warmest Mends wera disappointed, that 
he entered on the fruition of a patriot's highest hopes, and stood 
in the full enjoyment of that admiration and confidence which 
nothing but the antagonism of party relations could have divided. 

How rich that enjoyment must have been it is only for us to 
imagine. How eminently deserved it was we and the world can 
attest. 

The love and t^e devotion of his political friends were cheering 
and grateful to his heart, and were acknowledged in all his life — 
were recognised even to his death. 

The contest in the Senate Chamber or the forum were rewarded 
with success achieved, and the great victor could enjoy the ovation 
which partial friendship or the gratitude of the benefit prepared. 
But the triumph of his life was no party achievement. It was not 
in the applause which admiring friends and defeated antagonists 



J 



48 

offered to his measureless success, that he found the reward of his 
labors, and comprehended the extent of his mission. 

It was only when friends and antagonists paused in their con- 
tests, appalled at the public difficulties and national dangers which 
had been accumulating, unseen and unregarded ; it was only when 
the nation itself felt the danger, and acknowledged the inefficacy 
of party action as a remedy, that Henry Clay calculated the full ex- 
tent of his powers, and enjoyed the reward of their saving exercise. 
Then, sir, you saw, and I saw, party designations dropped, and 
party allegiance disavowed, and anxious patriots, of all localities 
and name, turn toward the country's benefactor as the man for the 
terrible exigencies of the hour ; and the sick chamber of Henry 
Clay became the Delphos whence were given out the oracles that 
presented the means and the measures of our Union's safety. 
There, sir, and not in the high places of the country, were the 
labors and sacrifices of half a century to be rewarded and closed. 
With his right yet in that Senate which he had entered the 
youngest, and lingered still the eldest member, he felt that his 
work was done, and the object of his life accomplished. Every 
cloud that had dimmed the noonday lustre had been dissipated ; 
and the retiring orb, which sunk from the sight of the nation in 
fullness and in beauty, will yet pour up the horizon a posthumous 
glory that shall tell of the splendor and greatness of the luminary 
that has passed away. 



Mr. BAYLY, of Virginia, said : . 
Mr. Speaker : Although I have been all my life a political op- 
ponent of Mr. Clay, yet from my boyhood I have been upon terms 
of personal friendship with him. More than twenty years ago, 
I was introduced to him by my father, who was his personal 
friend. From that time to this, there has existed between us as 
great personal intimacy as the disparity in our years and our poli- 
tical difference would justify. After I became a member of this 
House, and upon his return to the Senate, subsequent to his resig- 
nation in 1842, the warm regard upon his part for the daughter 
of a devoted friend of forty years' standing, made him a constant 
visitor at ray house, and frequently a guest at my table. These 
circumstances make it proper, that upon this occasion, I should pay 



49 

this last tribute to his memory. I not only knew him well as a 
statesman, but I knew him better in most unreserved social inter- 
course. The most happy circumstance, as I esteem it, of my po- 
litical life has been, that I have thus known each of our great 
Congressional triumvirate. 

I, sir, never knew a man of higher qualities than Mr. Clay. 
His very faults originated in high qualities. With as great self- 
possession, with greater self-reliance than any man I ever knew, 
he possessed moral and physical coui'age to as high a degree as 
any man who ever lived. Confident in his own judgment, never 
doubting as to his own course, fearing no obstacle that might lie 
in his way, it was almost impossible that he should not have been 
imperious in his character. Never doubting himself as to what, in 
his opinion, duty and patriotism required at his hands, it was na- 
tm-al that he should sometimes have been impatient with those 
more doubting and timid than himself His were qualities to have 
made a great general, as they were qualities that did make him a 
great statesman, and these qualities were so obvious that during 
the darkest period of our late war with Great Britain, Mr. Madi- 
son had determined, at one time, to make him Greneral-in-Chief of 
the American army. 

Sir, it is but a short time since the American Congress buried 
the first one that went to the grave of that great triumvirate. We 
are now called upon to bury another. The third, thank God ! still 
lives, and long may he live to enlighten his countrymen by his 
wisdom, and set them the example of exalted patriotism. Sir, in 
the lives and characters of these great men, there is much resemb- 
ling those of the great triumvirate of the British Parliament. It 
differs principally in this: Burke preceded Fox and Pitt to the 
tomb. Webster survives Clay and Calhoun. When Fox and Pitt 
died, they left no peer behind them. Webster still lives, now that 
Calhoun and Clay are dead, the unrivalled statesman of his coun- 
try. Like Fox and Pitt, Clay and Calhoun lived in troubled 
times. Like Fox and Pitt they were each of them the leader of 
rival^arties. Like Fox and Pitt they were idolized by their re- 
spective friends. Like Fox and Pitt, they died about the same 
time, and in the public service; and as has been said of Fox and 



50 

Pitt, Clay and Calhoun died with "their harness upon them.*' 
Like Fox and Pitt — 

" With more llian mortal powers endow'd 
How high they soar'd above the crowd ; 
Theirs was no common party race, 
Jostling by dark intrigue for place — 
Like fabled gods tiieir mighty war 
Shook reahus and nations in its jar. 
Beneath each banner proud to stand, 
Look'd up the noblest of the land. 

***** 
Here let their discord with them die. 
Speak not for those a separate doom ; 
Whom fate made brothers in the tomb ; 
But search tlie land of living men. 
Where wit tliou find tlieir like again ?" 

Mr. VENABLE said : — 
Mr. Speaker : I trust that I shall be pardoned for adding a few 
words upon this sad occasion. The life of the illustrious statesman 
which has just terminated is so interwoven with our history, and 
the lustre of his great name so profusely shed over its pages, that 
simple admii-ation of his high qualities might well be my excuse. 
But it is a sacred privilege to draw near; to contemplate the end 
of the great and the good. It is profitable, as well as purifying, to 
look upon and realize the ofiice of death in removing all that can 
excite jealousy or produce distrust, and to gaze upon the virtues 
which, like jewels, have survived his powers of destruction. The 
light which radiates from the life of a great and patriotic states- 
man is often dimmed by the mists which party conflicts throw 
around it. But the blast which strikes him down purifies the 
atmosphere which surrounded him in life, and it shines forth in 
bright examples and well-earned renown. It is then that we 
witness the sincere acknowledgment of gratitude by a people who, 
having enjoyed the benefits arising from the services of an eminent 
statesman, embalm his name in their memory and hearts. We 
should cherish such recollections as well from patriotism as self- 
respect. Ours, sir, is now the duty, in the midst of sadness, in 
this high place, in the face of our Republic, and before the world, 



51 

to pay this tribute, by acknowledging the merits of our colleague, 
whose name has ornamented the Journals of Congress for near 
half a century. Few, very few, have ever combined the high intel- 
lectual powers and distinguished gifts of this illustrious Senator. 
Cast in the finest mould by nature, he more than fulfilled the anti- 
cipations which were indulged by those who looked to a distin- 
guished career as the certain result of that zealous pursuit of fame 
and usefulness upon which he entered in early life. Of the inci- 
dents of that life it is unnecessary for me to speak — they are as 
familiar as household words, and must be equally familiar to those 
who come after us. But it is useful to refresh memory, by recur- 
rence to some of the events which marked his career. We know, 
sir, that there is much that is in common in the histories of dis- 
tinguished men. The elements which constitute greatness are the 
i<ame in aU times ; hence those who have been the admiration of 
their generations present in their lives much which, although really 
great, ceases to be remarkable, because illustrated by such numerous 
examples — 

" But there are deeds which shouJd not pass away, 
And names that must not wither." 



Of such deeds the life of Henry Clay aiFords many and bright 
examples. His own name, and those with whom be associated, 
shall live with a freshness which time cannot impair, and shine 
with a brightness which passing years cannot dim. His advent 
into public life was as remarkable for the circumstances as it was 
brilliant in its effect. It was at a time in which genius and learn- 
ing, statesmanship and eloquence, made the American Congress 
the most august body in the world. He was the contemporary of a 
race of statesmen, some of whom — then admmistering the Gov- 
ernment, and others retiring and retired from office — presented 
an array of ability unsurpassed in our history. The elder Adams, 
Jefferson, Madison, Gallatin, Clinton, and Monroe, stood before the 
Republic in the maturity of their fame; while Calhoun, John 
Quincy Adams, Lowndes, Randolph, Crawford, Gaston, and 
Cheves, with a host of others, rose a bright galaxy upon our 
horizon. He who won his spurs in such a field earned his knight- 
hood. Distinction amid such competition was true renown — 



52 



" The fame which a man wins for himself is bcsr 
That he may call his own." 

It was such a fame that he made for himself in that most 
eventful era in our history. To me, sir, the recollections of that 
day, and the events which distinguish it, is filled with an over- 
powering interest. I never can forget my enthusiastic admiration 
of the boldness, the eloquence, and the patriotism of Henry Clay 
during the war of 1812. In the bright array of talent which 
adorned the Congress of the United States ; in the conflict growing 
out of the political events of that time ; in the struggles of party, 
and amid the gloom and disasters which depressed the spirits of 
most men, and well nigh paralyzed the energies of the Adminis- 
tration, his cheerful face, high bearing, commanding eloquence, 
and iron will, gave strength and consistency to those elements 
which finally gave not only success but glory to the country. 
When dark clouds hovered over us, and there was little to save 
from despair, the country looked with hope to Clay and Calhoun, 
to Lowndes, and Crawford, and Cheves, and looked not in vain. 
The unbending will, the unshaken nerve, and the burning elo- 
quence of Henry Clay did as much to command confidence and 
sustain hope as even the news of our first victory after a succes- 
sion of defeats. Those great names are now canonized in history; 
he, too, has passed to join them on its pages. Associated in his 
long political life with the illustrious Calhoun, he survived him 
but two years. Many of us heard his eloquent tribute to his 
memory in the Senate Chamber, on the annunciation of his death. 
And we this day unite in a similar manifestation of reverential 
regard to him, whose voice shall never more charm the ear, whose 
burning thoughts, borne on that medium, shall no more move the 
hearts of listening assemblies. 

In the midst of the highest specimens of our race, he was 
always an equal ; he was a man among men. Bold, skilful, and 
determined, he gave character to the party which acknowledged 
him as a leader ; impressed his opinions upon their minds, and an 
attachment to himself upon their hearts. No man, sir, can do 
this without being eminently great. Whoever attains this position 
must first overcome the asjnrations of antagonist ambition, quiet 
the clamors of rivalry, hold in check the murmurs of jealousy, 



53 

and overcome the instincts of vanity and self-love in the masses 
thus subdued to his control. But few men ever attain it. Very 
rare are the examples of those whose jolastic touch forms the minds 
and directs the purposes of a great political party. This infallible 
indication of superiority belonged to Mr. Clav. He has exercised 
that control during a long life ; and now through our broad land 
the tidings of his death, borne with eleetiic speed, have opened 
the fountains of sorrow. Every city, town, village, and hamlet, 
■will be clothed with mourning ; along oui* extended coast the com- 
mercial and military marine, with flags drooping at half-mast, own 
the bereavement ; State-houses draped in black proclaim the extin- 
guishment of one of the great lights of Senates ; and minute-guns 
sound his requiem ! 

Sir, during the last five years I have seen the venerable John 
Quincy Adams, John C. Calhoun, and Henry Clay, pass from 
among us, the legislators of our country. The race of giants who 
"were on the earth in those days" is well-nigh gone. Despite 
their skill, their genius, their might, they have sunk under the 
stroke of time. They were our admiration and our glory ; a few 
linger with us, the monuments of former greatness, the beacon- 
lights of a past age. The death of Henry Clay cannot fail to 
suggest melancholy associations to each member of this House. 
These walls have re-echoed the silvery tones of his bewitching 
voice ; listening assemblies have hung upon his lips. The chair 
which you fill has been graced by his presence, while his com- 
manding person and unequalled parliamentary attainments inspired 
all with deference and respect. Chosen by acclamation, because 
of his high qualifications, he sustained himself before the House 
and the country. In his supremacy with his party, and the unin- 
terrupted confidence which he enjoyed to the day of his death, he 
seems to have almost discredited the truth of those lines of the 
poet Laberius — 

" Non possunt primi esse onines omni in tempore, 
Summum ad gradum cum claritatis veneris, 
Consistes asgre, et citius, quam ascendas, cades." 

If not at ail times first, he stood equal with the foremost, and a 
brilliant rapid rise knew no decline in the confidence of those whose 
just appreciation of his merits had confirmed his title to renown. 



54 



The citizens of otlier countries will deplore his death ; the strug 
gling patriots who, on our own continent, were cheered by his sym- 
pathies, and who must have perceived his influence in the recognition 
of their independence by this Government, have taught their 
children to venerate his name. He won the civic crown, and the 
demonstrations of this hour own the worth of civil services. 

It was with great satisfaction that I heard my friend from Ken- 
tucky, [Mr. Breckenridge,] the immediate Representative of Mr. 
Clay, detail a conversation, which disclosed the feelings of that 
eminent man in relation to his Christian hope. These, Mr. 
Speaker, are rich memorials, precious reminiscences. A Christian 
statesman is the glory of his age, and his memory will be glorious 
in after times ; it reflects a light coming from a source which clouds 
cannot dim nor shadows obscui-e. It was my privilege, also, a 
short time since, to converse with this distinguished statesman on 
the subject of his hopes in a futui-e state. Feeling a deep interest, 
I asked him frankly what were his hopes in the world to which he 
was evidently hastening. " I am pleased," said he, " my friend, 
that you have introduced the subject. Conscious that I must die 
very soon, I love to meditate upon the most important of all 
interests. I love to converse and to hear conversations about 
them. The vanity of the world, and its insufficiency to satisfy the 
soul of man, has long been a settled conviction of my mind. 
Man's inability to secui-e by his own merits the approbation of 
God, I feel to be true. I trust in the atonement of the Saviour 
of men, as the ground of my acceptance and my hope of salvation. 
My faith is feeble, but I hope in His mercy and trust in His prom- 
ises." To such declarations I listened with the deepest interest, 
as I did on another occasion, when he said : " I am willing to abide 
the will of Heaven, and ready to die when that will shall deter- 
mine it." 

He is gone, sir, professing the humble hope of a Christian. That 
hope, alone, sir, can sustain you, or any of us. There is one lonely 
and crushed heart that has bowed before this afflictive event. Far 
away, at Ashland, a widowed wife, prevented by feeble health from 
attending his bedside and soothing his painful hours, she has 
thought even the electric speed of the intelligence daily transmit- 
ted of his condition too slow for her aching, anxious bosom. She 



55 

will find consolation in his Christian submission, and will draw all 
of comfort that such a case admits, from the assurance that nothing 
was neglected by the kindness of friends which could supply her 
place. May the guardianship of the widow's God be her protec- 
tion, and His consolations her support ! 

" All cannot be at all times first, 
To reach the topmost step of glory ; to stand there 
More hard. Even swifter than we mount we fall." 

Mr. HAVEN, said : 

Mr. Speaker: Representing a constituency distinguished for 
the constancy of its devotion to the political principles of Mr. 
Clay, and for its unwavering attachment to his fortunes and his 
person — sympathizing deeply with those whose more intimate per- 
sonal relations with him have made them feel most profoundly this 
general bereavement — I desire to say a few words of him, since 
he has fallen amongst us, and been taken to his rest. 

After the finished eulogies which have been so eloquently pro- 
nounced by the honorable gentlemen who have preceded me, I will 
avoid a course of remark which might otherwise be deemed a re- 
petition, and refer to the bearing of some of the acts of the de- 
ceased upon the interests and destinies of my own State. The in- 
fluence of his public life, and of his purely Americmi character, 
the benefits of his wise forecast, and the results of his efforts for 
wholesome and rational progress, are nowhere more strongly ex- 
hibited than in the State of New York. 

Our appreciation of his anxiety for the general diffusion of 
knowledge and education, is manifested in our twelve thousand 
public libraries, our equal number of common schools, and a large 
number of higher institutions of learning, all of which draw por- 
tions of their support from the share of the proceeds of the public 
lands, which his wise policy gave to our State. Our whole people 
are thus constantly reminded of their great obligations to the 
statesman whose death now afilicts the nation with sorrow. Our 
extensive public works, attest our conviction of the utility and im- 
portance of the system of internal improvements he so ably advo- 
cated ; and their value and productiveness, afford a most striking 
evidence of the soundness and wisdom of his policy. Nor has his 



56 

influence been less sensibly felt in our agriculture, commerce, and 
manufactures. Every department of human industry acknowledges 
his fostering care ; and the people of New York are, in no small 
measure, indebted to his statesmanship for the wealth, comfort, 
contentment, and happiness so widely and generally diffused 
throughout the State. 

Well may New York cherish his memory and acknowledge with 
gratitude the benefits that his life has conferred. That memory 
will be cherished throughout the Republic. 

When internal discord and sectional strife have threatened the 
integrity of the Union, his just weight of character, his large ex- 
perience, his powers of conciliation and acknowledged patriotism, 
have enabled him to pacify the angry passions of his countrymen, 
and to raise the bow of promise and of hope upon the clouds which 
have darkened the political horizon. 

He has passed from amongst us, ripe in wisdom and pure in 
character — full of years and full of honors — he has breathed his 
last amidst the blessings of a united and grateful nation. 

He was, in my judgment, particularly fortunate in the time of 
his death. 

He lived to see his country, guided by his wisdom, come once 
again unhurt, out of trying sectional difficulties and domestic 
strife ; and he has closed his eyes in death upon that country, 
whilst it is in the enjoyment of profound peace, busy with indus- 
try, and blessed with unequalled prosperity. 

It can faU to the lot of but few to die amidst so warm a grati- 
tude flowing from the hearts of their countrymen ; and none can 
leave a brighter example or a more enduring fame. 

Mr. BROOKS, of New York, said: , 
Mr. Speaker : I rise to add my humble tribute to the memory 
of a great and good man now to be gathered to his fathers. I 
speak for, and from, a community in whose heart is enshrined the 
name of him whom we mourn ; who, however much Virginia, the 
land of his birth, or Kentucky, the land of his adoption, may love 
him, is, if possible, loved where I live yet more. If idolatry had 
been Christian, or allowable even, he would have been our idol. 
But as it is, for a quarter of a century now, his bust, his portrait, 



I 



57 

or some medal, has been one of our household gods, gracing not 
alone the saloons and the halls of wealth, but the humblest room 
or workshop of almost every mechanic or laborer. Proud monu- 
ments of his policy as a statesman, as my colleague has justly said, 
are all about us ; and we owe to him, in a good degree, our 
growth, oiu' greatness, our prosperity and happiness as a people. 

The great field of Henry Clay, Mr. Speaker, has been here, 
on the floor of this House, and in the other wing of the Capitol. 
He has held other posts of higher nominal distinction, but they 
are all eclipsed by the brilliancy of his career as a Congressman. 
What of glory he has acquired, or what most endear him to his 
countrymen, have been won, here, amid these pillars, under these 
domes of the Capitol. 

"Si queris monumentum, circumspice." 

The mind of Mr. Clay has been the governing mind of the 
country, more or less, ever since he has been on the stage of public 
action. In a minority or majority — more, perhaps, even in a 
minority than in a majority — he seems to have had some com- 
mission, divine as it were, to persuade, to convince, to govern other 
men. His patriotism, his grand conceptions, have created mea- 
sures which the secret fascination of his manners, in-doors, or his 
irresistible eloquence without, have enabled him almost always to 
frame into laws. Adverse administrations have yielded to him, or 
been borne down by him, or he has taken them captive as a leader 
and carried the country and Congress with him. This power he 
has wielded now for nearly half a century, with nothing but Rea- 
son and Eloquence to back him. And yet when he came here, 
years ago, he came from a then frontier State of this Union, 
heralded by no loud trumpet of fame, nay, quite unknown ! unfor- 
tified even by any position, social or pecuniary ; — to quote his own 
words, "My only heritage has been infancy, indigence, and 
ignorance." 

In these days, Mr. Speaker, when mere civil qualifications for 
high public places — when long civil training and practical states- 
manship are held subordinate — a most discouraging prospect 
would be rising up before our young men, were it not for some 
such names as Lowndes, Crawford, Clinton, Gaston, Calhoun, 



58 

Clay, and the like, scattered along the pages of our history, as 
stars or constellatious along a cloudless sky. They shine forth 
and show us, that if the Chief Magistracy cannot be won by such 
qualifications, a memory among men can be — a hold upon pos- 
terity, as firm, as lustrous — nay, more imperishable. In the 
Capitolium of Rome there are long rows of marble slabs, on which 
are recorded the names of the Roman consuls; but the eye wan- 
ders over this wilderness of letters but to light up and kindle 
upon some Cato or Cicero. To win such fame, thus unsullied, as 
Mr. Clay has won, is worth any man's ambition. And how was it 
won? By courting the shifting gales of popularity? No, never! 
By truckling to the schemes, the arts, and seductions of the dem- 
agogue ? Never, never ! His hardest battles as a j^ublic man — 
his greatest, most illustrious achievements — have been against, at 
first, an adverse public opinion. To gain an imperishable name, 
he has often braved the perishable popularity of the moment. 
That sort of courage which, in a public man, I deem the highest 
of all courage, that sort of courage most necessary under our form 
of government to guide as well as to save a State, Mr. Clay was 
possessed of more than any public man I ever knew. Physical 
courage, valuable, indispensable though it be, we share but with 
the brute ; but moral courage, to dare to do right amid all temp- 
tations to do wrong, is, as it seems to me, the very highest species, 
the noblest heroism, under institutions like ours. " I had rather 
be right than be President," was Mr. Clay's sublime reply when 
2:)ressed to refrain from some measure that would mar his popu- 
larity. These lofty words were the clue of his whole character — 
the secret of his hold upon the heads as well as hearts of the 
American people ; nay, the key of his immortality. 

Another of the keys, Mr. Speaker, of his universal reputation 
was his intense nationality. When taunted but recently, almost 
within our hearing, as it were, on the floor of the Senate by a 
Southern Senator, as being a Southern man unfaithful to the 
South — his indignant but patriotic exclamation was, "I know no 
Sontli, no North, no East, no West." The country, the %ohole 
country, loved, reverenced, adored such a man. The soil of Vir- 
ginia may be his birth2)lace, the sod of Kentucky will cover his 
grave — what was mortal they claim — but the spirit, the soul, the 



59 

genius of the mighty man, the immortal part, these belong to his 
country and to his God. 

Mr. FAULKNER, of Virginia, said: — 
Representing, in part, the State which gave birth to that dis- 
tinguished man whose death has just been announced upon this 
floor, and having for many years held toward him the most cordial 
relations of friendship, personal and political, I feel that I should 
fail to discharge an appropriate duty, if I permitted this occasion 
to pass by without some expression of the feeling which such an 
event is so well calculated to elicit. Sir, this intelligence does not 
fall upon our ears unexpectedly. For months the public mind 
has been prepared for the great national loss which we now de- 
plore ; and yet, as familiar as the daily and hourly reports have 
made us with his hopeless condition and gradual decline, and 
although 

"Like a shadow thrown 
Softly and sweetly from a passing cloud, 
Death fell upon him," 

it is impossible that a light of such sm*passing splendor should be, 
as it is now, for ever extinguished from our view, without produ- 
cing a shock, deeply and painfully felt, to the utmost limits of this 
great Republic. Sir, we all feel that a mighty intellect has passed 
from among us; but, happily for this country, happily for man- 
kind, not until it had accomplished to some extent the exalted 
mission for which it had been sent upon this earth; not until it 
had reached the full maturity of its usefulness and power ; not 
until it had shed a bright and radiant lustre over our national 
renown ; not until time had enabled it to bequeath the rich trea- 
sures of its thought and experience for the guidance and instruc- 
tion of the present and of succeeding generations. 

Sir, it is difficult, — it is impossible, — within the limit allowed 
for remarks upon occasions of this kind, to do justice to a great 
historical character like Henry Clay. He was one of that class 
of men whom Scaliger designates as homines centenarii — men 
that appear upon the earth but once in a century. His fame is 
the growth of years, and it would require time to unfold the ele- 
ments which have combined to impart to it so much of stability 



60 



and grandeur. Volumes have already been written, and volumes 
will continue to be written, to record those eminent and distin- 
guished public services which have placed him in the front rank 
of American statesmen and patriots. The highest talents, stimu- 
lated by a fervid and patriotic enthusiasm, has already and will 
continue to exhaust its powers to portray those striking and gen- 
erous incidents of his life, — those shining and captivating quali- 
ties of his heart, which have made him one of the most beloved, 
as he was one of the most admired, of men ; and yet the subject 
itself will remain as fresh and exhaustless as if hundreds of the 
best intellects of the land had not quaffed the inspii-ation of their 
genius from the ever-gushing and overflowing fountains of his 
fame. It could not be that a reputation so grand and colossal as 
that which attaches to the name of Henry Clay could rest for its 
base upon any single virtue, however striking ; nor upon any single 
act, no matter how marked or distinguished. Such a reputation 
as he has left behind him, could only be the result of a long life 
of illustrious public service. And such in truth it was. For 
nearly half a century he has been a prominent actor in all the 
stu-ring and eventful scenes of American history, fashioning and 
moulding many of the most important measures of public policy 
by his bold and sagacious mind, and arresting others by his un- 
conquerable energy and resistless force of eloquence. And how- 
ever much the members of this body may differ in opinion as to 
the wisdom of many of his views of national domestic policy, there 
is not one upon this floor — no, sir, not one in this nation — who 
v/ill deny to him frankness and directness as a public man ; a 
genius for statesmanship of the highest order ; extraordinary capa- 
cities for public usefulness, and an ardent and elevated patriotism, 
without stain and without reproach. 

In referring to a career of public service so varied and extended 
as that of Mr. Clay, and to a character so rich in every great and 
manly virtue, it is only possible to glance at a few of the most 
prominent of those points of his personal history, which have given 
to him so distinguished a place in the affections of his countrymen. 

In the whole character of Mr. Clay, in all that attached or 
belonged to it, you find nothing that is not essentially Ameuican. 
Born in the darkest period of our Revolutionary struggle ; reared 



61 



1 



from infancy to manhood among those' great minds which gave 
the first impulse to that mighty movement, he early imbibed, and 
sedulously cherished, those great principles of civil and political 
liberty, which he so brilliantly illustrated in his subsequent life, 
and which has made hia name a watchword of hope and consola- 
tion to the oppressed of all the earth. In his intellectual training 
he was the pure creation of our own republican soil. Few, if any, 
allusions are to be seen in his speeches or writings to ancient or 
modern literature, or to the thoughts and ideas of other men. 
His country, its institutions, its policy, its interests, its destiny, 
form the exclusive topics of those eloquent harangues which, while 
they are destitute of the elaborate finish, have all the ardor and 
intensity of thought, the earnestness of purpose, the cogency of 
reasoning, the vehemence of style, and the burning patriotism 
which mark the productions of the great Athenian orator. 

One of the most distinguishing chai*acteristics of Mr. Clay, as 
a public man, was his loyalty to truth, and to the honest convic- 
tions of his own mind. He deceived no man ; he would not permit 
his own heart to be deceived by any of those seductive influences 
which too often warp the judgment of men in public station. He 
never paused to consider how far any step which he was about to 
take would lead to his own personal advancement ; he never cal- 
culated what he might lose or what he might gain by his advocacy 
of, or his opposition to, any particular measure. His single inquiry 
was, Is it right ? Is it in accordance with the Constitiition of the 
land? Will it redound to the permanent welfare of the country? 
When satisfied upon these points, his determination was fixed ; his 
purpose was immovable. "I would rather be right than Presi- 
dent," was the expression of his genuine feelings, and the principle 
by which he was controlled in his public career — a saying worthy 
of immortality, and proper to be inscribed upon the heart of every 
young man in this Republic. And yet, sir, with all of that per- 
sonal and moral intrepidity which so eminently marked the char- 
acter of Mr. Clay; with his well-known inflexibility of purpose 
and unyielding resolution, such was the genuine sincerity of his 
patriotism, and such his thorough comprehension of those princi- 
ples of compromise, upon which the whole structure of our 
Government was founded, that no one was more prompt to relax 



vacT 



\ 



62 

tbe rigor of his policy the moment he perceived that it "was calcu- 
lated to disturb the harmony of the States, or to endanger, in any 
degree, the stability of the Government. With him the love of this 
Union was a passion -—an absorbing sentiment — which gave color 
to every act of his public life. It triumphed over party ; it tri- 
umphed over policy ; it subdued the natural fierceness and haughti- 
ness of his temper, and brought him into the most kindly and 
cordial relations with those who, upon all other questions, were 
deeply and bitterly opposed to him. It has been asserted, sir, upon 
high medical authority, and doubtless with truth, that his life was, 
in all probability, shortened ten years by the arduous and extraor- 
dinary labors which he assumed at the memorable session of 1850. 
If so, he has added the crowning glory of the martyr to the spot- 
less fame of the patriot ; and we may well hope that a great na- 
tional pacification, purchased at such a sacrifice, wiU long continue 
to cement the bonds of this now happy and prosperous Union. 

Mr. Clay possessed, in an eminent degree, the qualities of a 
great popular leader ; and history, I will assume to say, afibrds no 
example in any Kepublic, ancient or modern, of any individual 
that so fearlessly carried out the convictions of his own judgment, 
and so sparingly flattered the prejudices of popular feeling, who, 
for so long a period, exercised the same controlling influence over 
the public mind. Earnest in whatever measure he sustained, fear- 
less in attack — dexterous in defence — abounding in intellectual 
resource — eloquent in debate — of inflexible purpose, and with a 
" courage never to submit or yield," no man ever lived with higher 
qualifications to rally a desponding party, or to lead an embattled 
host to victory. That he never attained the highest post of honor- 
able ambition in this country, is not to be ascribed to any want of 
capacity as a popular leader, nor to the absence of those qualities 
which attract the fidelity and devotion of " troops " of admiring 
friends. It was the fortune of Napoleon, at a critical period of his 
destiny, to be brought into collision with the star of Wellington ; 
and it was the fortune of Henry Clay to have encountered, in his 
political orbit, another great and original mind, gifted with equal 
power for commanding success, and blessed with more fortunate 
elements, concurring at the time, of securing popular favor. The 
struggle Fas such as might have been anticipated from the collision 



63 

of two sucli fierce and powerful rivals. For near a quarter of a 
century this great Republic has been convulsed to its centre by 
the divisions which have sprung from their respective opinions, 
policy, and personal destinies ; and even now, when they have both 
been removed to a higher and a better sphere of existence, and 
■when every unkind feeling has been quenched in the triumphs of 
the grave, this country still feels, and for years will continue to 
feel, the influence of those agitations to which their powerful and 
impressive characters gave impulse. 

But I must pause. K I were to attempt to present all the 
aspects in which the character of this illustrious man will challenge 
the applause of history, I should fatigue the House, and violate the 
just limit allowed for such remarks. 

I cannot however conclude, sir, without making some more 
special allusion to Mr. Clay, as a native of that State which I have 
the honor in part to represent upon this floor. We are all proud, 
and very properly proud, of the distinguished men to whom our 
respective States have given birth. It is a just and laudable 
emulation, and one, in a confederated government like ours, proper 
to be encouraged. And while men like Mr. Clat very rapidly 
rise above the confined limits of a State reputation, and acquire a 
national fame, in which all claim, and all have an equal interest, 
still there is a propriety and fitness in preserving the relation 
between the individual and his State. Virginia has given birth 
to a large number of men who have, by their distinguished talents 
and services, impressed their names upon the hearts and memories 
of their countrymen; but certainly, since the colonial era, she has 
given birth to no man, who, in the massive and gigantic propor- 
tions of his character, and in the splendor of his native endow- 
ments, can be compared to Henky Clay. At an early age he 
emigrated from his native State, and found a home in Kentucky. 
In a speech which he delivered in the Senate of the United States, 
in February, 1842 — and which I well remember — upon the occa- 
sion of his resigning his seat in that body, he expressed the wish 
that, when that event should occur which has now clothed this 
city in mourning, and filled the nation with grief, his "earthly 
remains should be laid under the green sod of Kentucky, with 
those of her gallant and patriotic sons." 



64 



Sir, however gratifying it miglit be to us that his remains should 
be transferred to his native soil, to there mingle with the ashes of 
Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Lee, and Henry, we cannot com- 
plain of the very natural preference which he has himself expressed. 
If Vii'ginia did give him birth — Kentucky has nourished him in 
his manhood — has freely lavished upon him her highest honors — 
has shielded him from harm when the clouds of calumny and 
detraction gathered heavily and loweringly about him, and she 
has watched over his fame with the tenderness and zeal of a 
mother. Sir, it is not to be wondered that he should have ex- 
pressed the wish he did, to be laid by the side of her gallant and 
patriotic sons. Happy Kentucky ! Happy in having an adopted 
son so worthy of her highest honors. Happy, in the unshaken 
fidelity and loyalty with which, for near half a century, those 
honors have been so steadfastly and gracefully accorded to him. 

Sir, whilst Virginia, in the exercise of her own proper judgment, 
has differed from Mr. Clay in some of his views of national policy, 
she has never, at any period of his public career, failed to regard 
him with pride, as one of her most distinguished sons ; to honor 
the purity and the manliness of his character, and to award to him 
the high credit of an honest and sincere devotion to his country's 
welfare. And now, sir, that death has arrested for ever the pul- 
sations of that mighty heart, and sealed in eternal silence those 
eloquent lips, upon whose accents thousands have so often hung in 
rapture, I shall stand justified in saying, that a wail of lamentation 
will be heard from her people — her whole people — reverberating 
through her mountains and valleys, as deep, as genuine, and as 
sincere as that, which I know, will swell the noble hearts and the 
heaving bosoms of the people of his own cherished and beloved 
Kentucky. 

Sir, as I walked to the Capitol this morning, eveiy object which 
attracted my eye admonished me that a nation's benefactor had 
departed from amongst us. He is gone ! Henry Clay, the idol 
of his friends, the ornament of the Senate Chamber, the pride of 
his country ; he whose presence gathered crowds of his admu-ing 
fellow-men around 1dm, as if he had been one descended from 
above, has passed for ever from our view. 



65 

"His soul, enlarged from its vile bonds, has gone 
To that REFULGENT world, where it shall swim 
In liquid light, and float on seas of bliss." 

But the memory of his virtues, and of his services, will be grate- 
fully embalmed in the hearts of his countrymen, and generations 
yet unborn will be taught to lisp, with reverence and enthusiasm, 
the name of Henry Clay. 

Mr. PARKER, of Indiana, said: — 

Mr. Speaker : This is a solemn — a consecrated hour. And 1 
would not detain the members of the House from indulging in the 
silence of their own feelings, so grateful to hearts chastened as 
ours. 

But I cannot restrain an expression from a bosom pained with 
its fullness. 

When my young thoughts first took cognizance of the fact that 
I have a country — my eye was attracted by the magnificent pro- 
portions of Henry Clay. 

The idea absorbed me then, that he was, above all other men, 
the imbodiment of my country's genius. 

I have watched him ; I have studied him ; I have admired him 

— and, God forgive me ! for he was but a man, " of like passions 
with us" — I fear I have idolized him, until this hour. 

But he has gone from among men ; and it is for us now to awake 
and apply ourselves, with renewed fervor and increased fidelity, to 
the welfare of the country he loved so well, and served so truly 
and so long — the glorious country yet saved to us! 

Yes, Henry Clay has fallen, at last ! — as the ripe oak falls in 
the stillness of the forest. But the verdant and gorgeous richness 
of his glories will only fade and wither from the earth, when his 
country's history shall have been forgotten. 

" One generation passeth away and another generation cometh." 
Thus it has been from the beginning, and thus it will be, until 
time shall be no longer. 

Yesterday morning, at eleven o'clock, the spirit of Henry Clay 

— so long the pride and glory of his own country, and the admi- 
ration of all the world — was yet with us, though' struggling to 
be free. Ere " high noon " came, it had passed over " the dark 



66 

river," through the gate, into the celestial city, inhabited by all 
the "just men made perfect." 

May not our rapt vision contemplate him there, this day, in 
sweet communion with the dear friends that have gone before 
him? — with Madison, and Jefferson, and Washington, and Henry, 
and Franklin — with the eloquent Tully, with the "divine Plato," 
with Aaron the Levite, who could " speak well " — with all the 
great and good, since and before the flood ! 

His princely tread has graced these aisles for the last time. 
These Halls will wake no more to the magic music of his voice. 

Did that tall spirit, in its ethereal form, enter the courts of the 
upper sanctuary, bearing itself comparably with the spirits there, as 
was his walk among men ? 

Did the mellifluous tones of his greeting there enrapture the 
hosts of Heaven, comparably with his strains "to stir men's 
blood " on earth ? 

Then, may we not fancy, when it was announced to the inhab- 
itants of that better country. He comes ! — He comes ! — there was 
a rustling of an gel- wings — a thrilling joy — up there, only to be 
witnessed once in an earthly age ? 

Adieu ! — a last adieu to thee, Henry Clay ! 

The hearts of all thy countrymen are melted, on this day, 
because of the thought that thou art gone. 

Could we have held the hand of the "insatiate ai'cher," thou 
hadst not died ; but thou wouldst have tarried with us, in the fuU 
grandeur of thy greatness, until we had no longer need of a 
country. 

But we thank our Heavenly Father that thou wast given to us ; 
and that thou didst survive so long. 

We would cherish thy memory while we live, as our country's 
JEWEL — than which none is richer. And we will teach our chil- 
dren the lessons of matchless patriotism thou hast taught us ; with 
the fond hope that our Liberty and our Union may only expire 
with " the last of earth." 



Mr. GENTRY said : — 

Mr. Speaker : I do not rise to pronounce an eulogy on the life 
and character, and public services, of the illustrious orator and 



67 

statesman whose death this nation deplores. Suitably to perform 
that task, a higher eloquence than I possess might essay in vain. 
The gusliing tears of the nation, the deep grief which oppresses 
the hearts of more than twenty millions of people, constitute a 
more eloquent eulogium upon the life and character, and patriot 
services of Henry Clay, than the power of language can express. 
In no part of our country is that character more admired, or those 
public services more appreciated, than in the State which I have 
the honor, in part, to represent. I claim for the people of that 
State a full participation in the general woe which the sad an- 
nouncement of to-day will every where inspire. 



Mr. BOWIE, said : — 

Mr. Speaker : I rise not to utter the measured phrases of pre- 
meditated woe, but to speak, as my constituency would, if they 
stood around the grave now opening to receive the mortal remains, 
not of a statesman only, but of a beloved friend. 

If there is a State in this Union, other than Kentucky, which 
sends up a wail of more bitter and sincere sorrow than another, 
that State is Maryland. 

In her midst, the departed statesman was a frequent and a wel- 
come guest. At many a board, and many a fireside, his noble 
form was the light of the eyes, the idol of the heart. Throughout 
her borders, in cottage, hamlet, and city, his name is a household 
word, his thoughts are familiar sentences. 

Though not permitted to be the first at his cradle, Maryland 
would be the last at his tomb. 

Through all the phases of political fortune, amid all the storms 
which darkened his career, Maryland cherished him in her inmost 
heart, as the most gifted, patriotic, and eloquent of men. To this 
hour, prayers ascend from many domestic altars, evening and 
morning, for his temporal comfort and eternal welfare. In the 
language of inspiration, Maryland would exclaim, "There is a 
prince and a great man, fallen this day, in Israel." Daughters of 
America ! weep for him " who hath clothed you in scarlet and fine 
linen." 



68 

The husbandman at his plough, the artisan at the anvil, and 
the seaman on the mast, will pause and drop a tear when he hears 
Clay is no more. 

The advocate of Freedom in both hemispheres, he will be la- 
mented alike on the shores of the Hellespont and the banks of the 
Mississippi and Orinoco. The freed men of Liberia, learning and 
practising the art of self-government, and civilizing Africa, have 
lost in him a patron and protector, a father and a friend. America 
mourns the eclipse of a luminary, which enlightened and illumi- 
nated the continent; the United States, a counsellor of deepest 
wisdom and purest purpose; mankind, the advocate of human 
rights and constitutional liberty. 



Mr. WALSH said: — 

Mr. Speakek : The illustrious man whose death we this day 
mourn, was so long my political leader — so long almost the object 
of my personal idolatry — that I cannot allow that he shall go 
down to the grave, without a word at least of affectionate remem- 
brance — without a tribute to a memory which will exact tribute 
as long as a heart shall be found to beat within the bosom of civ- 
ilized man, and human agency shall be adequate in any form to 
give them an expression ; and even, sir, if I had no heartfelt sigh 
to pour out here — if I had no tear for that coffin's lid, I should 
do injustice to those whose representative in part I am, if I did not 
in this presence, and at this time, raise the voice to swell the 
accents of the profoundest public sorrow. 

The State of Maryland has always vied with Kentucky in love 
and adoration of his name. Her people have gathered around 
him with all the fervor of a first affection, and with more than its 
duration. Troops of friends have ever clustered about his path- 
way with a personal devotion which each man of them regarded as 
the highest individual honor — friends, sir, to whose firesides the 
tidings of his death will go with all the withering influences 
which are felt when household ties are severed. 

T wish^ sir, I could offer now a proper memorial for such a sub- 
ject and such an affection. But as I strive to utter it, I feel the 
disheartening influence of the well-known truth, that in view of 
death all minds sink into triteness. It would seem, indeed, sir. 



69 

that the great leveller of our race would vindicate his title to be so 
considered, by making all men think alike in regard to his visita- 
tion — "the thousand thoughts that begin and end in one" — the 
desolation here — the eternal hope Acreor/^er — are influences felt 
alike by the lowest intellect and the loftiest genius. 

Mr. Speaker, a statesman for more than fifty years in the coun- 
cils of his country, Avhose peculiar charge it was to see that the 
Republic suffered no detriment — a patriot for all times, all cir- 
cumstances, and all emergencies — has passed away from the trials 
and triumphs of the world, and gone to his reward. Sad as are 
the emotions which such an event would ordinarily excite, their 
intensity is heightened by the matters so fresh within the memo- 
ries of us all : 



" Oh ! think how to his latest day, 
When death, just hovering, claim'd his prey. 
With PaUnurus' unalter'd mood, 
Firm at his dangerous post he stood, 
Eaeli call for needful rest repell'd, 
With dying hand the rudder held ; 
Then while on freedom's thousand plains 
One unpolluted church remains, 
Whose peaceful bells ne'er sent around. 
The bloody tocsin's maddening sound. 
But still, upon the hallow'd day. 
Convoke the swams to praise and pra}', 
While faith and civil peace are dear, 
Greet his cold marble with a tear, 
He who preserved them — Clay lies here." 

In a character, Mr. Speaker, so illustrious and beautiful, it is 
difiicult to select any point for particular notice, from those which 
go to make up its noble proportions ; but we may now, around his 
honored grave, call to grateful recollection that invincible spirit 
which no personal sorrow could sully, and no disaster could over- 
come. Be assured, sir, that he has in this regard left a legacy to 
the young men of the Republic, almost as sacred and as dear as 
that liberty of which his life was a blessed illustration. 

We can all remember, sir, when adverse political results dis- 
heartened his friends, and made them feel even as men without 
hope, that his own clarion voice was still heard in the purpose and 
the pursuit of right, as bold and as eloquent as when it first pro- 
claimed the freedom of the seas, and its talismanic tones struck 



70 

off the badges of bondage from the lands of the lucas, and the 
plains of Marathon. 

Mr. Speaker, in the exultation of the statesman he did not 
forget the duties of the man. He was an affectionate adviser on 
all points wherein inexperienced youth might require counsel. He 
was a disinterested sympathizer in ^^ersonal sorrows that called for 
consolation. He was ever upright and honorable in all the duties 
incident to his relations in life. 

To an existence so lovely, Heaven in its mercy granted a fitting 
and appropriate close. It was the prayer, Mr. Speaker, of a dis- 
tinguished citizen, who died some years since in the metropolis, 
even while his spirit was fluttering for its final flight, that he 
might dej)art gracefully. It may not be presumptuous to say, that 
what was in that instance the aspiration of a chivalric gentlemen, 
was in this the realization of the dying Christian, in which was 
blended all that human dignity could require, with all that Divine 
grace had conferred ; in which the firmness of the man was only 
transcended by the fervor of the penitent. 

A short period before his death he remarked to one by his bed- 
side, " that he was fearful he was becoming selfish, as his thoughts 
were entirely withdrawn from the world and centered upon eter- 
nity." This, sir, was but the purification of his noble spirit from 
all the dross of earth — a happy illustration of what the religious 
muse has so sweetly sung — 

" No sin to stain — no lure to stay 
The soul, as home she springs ; 
Thy sunshine on her joyful way, 
Thy freedom in her wings." 

Mr. Speaker, the solemnities of this hour may soon be forgot- 
ten. We may come back from the new-made grave only still to 
show that we consider "eternity the bubble, life and time the en- 
during substance." We may not pause long enough by the brink 
to ask which of us revellers of to-day shall next be at rest. But 
be assured, sir, that upon the records of mortality will never be 
inscribed a name more illustrious than that of the statesman, 
patriot, and friend whom the nation mourns. 

The question was then put on the adoption of the resolutions pro- 
posed by ]Mr. Breckinridge, and they were unanimously adopted. 



ORDER OF PROCEEDINGS AT THE FUNERAL 



OF THE 



Hon. henry clay 



A SENATOR OF THE UNITED STATES FROM THE STATE OF KENTUCKY. 



THURSDAY, JULY 1, 1852. 



TuE Committee of AiTangements, Pall-Bearers, and Mourners, 
attended at tlie National Hotel, the late residence of the deceased, 
at 11 o'clock, A. M. At half-past eleven the funeral iDrocession to 
the Capitol was formed, in the following order : 

The Chaplains of both Houses of Congress. 
Physicians who attended the deceased. 

Committee of Arrangements. 

Messrs. Hunter, Dawson, Jones of Iowa, Cooper, Bright, and 
Smith. 

Pall-Bearers. 

Messrs. Cass, Mangum, Dodge of Wisconsin, Pratt, Atchison, 
and Bell. 

Committee to attend the remains of the deceased to Kentucky. 

Messrs. Underwood, Jones of Tennessee, Cass, Fish, Houston, 
and Stockton. 

The Family and Friends of the deceased. 

The Senators and Representatives from the State of Kentucky, 

as mourners. 

The Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate. 

71 



72 

The Senate of the United States, preceded by theu- President 
2oro tempore, and Secretary. 

The other Officers of the Senate. 

The Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Kepresentatives. 

The House of Eepresentatives, preceded by their Speaker and 
Clerk. 

The other Officers of the House of Kepresentatives. 

Judges of the United States. 

Officers of the Executive Departments. 

Officers of the Army and Navy. 

The Mayor and Corporation of Washington, and of other cities. 

Civic Associations. 

Military Companies. 

Citizens and Strangers. 

The procession having entered the Senate Chamber, where the 
President of the United States, the Heads of Departments, the 
Diplomatic Corps, and others were already present, the funeral 
service was performed by Rev. Dr. Butler, Chaplain to the 
Senate. 

At the conclusion of the service, the corpse was placed in tlie 
Rotunda, where it remained until half-past three o'clock, p. m., 
when it was removed, in charge of the Committee of Arrano-e- 
ments and Pall-Bearers, to the Railroad Depot, and confided to 
the Committee appointed to accompany it to Kentucky. 



/ 



I 



id 



'•THE STRONG STAFF BROKEN, THE BEAUTIFUL ROD." 



A SERMON 

DELIVERED IN THE SENATE CHAMBER, JULY 1, 1852, 



ON THE OCCASION OF THE 



FUNERAL OF THE HON. HENRY CLAY, 



BY THE 



REV. C. M. BUTLER, D. D., 



CHAPLAIN OF THE SENATE. 



" How is tlie Strong staff broken, the beautiful rod." — Jee. xlviii. 17. 

Before all hearts and minds in this august assemblage the vivid 
image of one man stands. To some aged eye he may come forth, 
from the dim past, as he. appeared in the neighboring city of his 
native State, a lithe and*^rdent youth, full of promise, of ambition, 
and. of hope. To another he may appear as, in a distant State, in 
the courts of justice, erect, high-strung, bold, wearing the fresh 
forensic laurel on his young and open brow. Some may see him 
in the earlier, and some in the later, stages of his career, on this 
conspicuous theatre of his renown ; and to the former he will start 
out on the back ground of the past, as he appeared in the neigh- 
boring Chamber, tall, elate, impassioned — with flashing eye, and 
suasive gesture, and clarion voice, an already acknowledged " Aga- 
memnon, King of Men ;" and to others he will again stand in this 
Chamber, "the strong staff" of the bewildered and staggering 
State, and "the beautiful rod," rich with the blossoms of genius, 
and of patriotic love and hope, the life of youth still remaining to 

give animation, grace, and exhaustless vigor, to the wisdom, the 

73 



74 



experience, and the gravity of age. To others he may be present - 
as he sat in the chamber of sickness, cheerful, majestic, gentle — 
his mind clear, his heart warm, his hope fixed on Heaven, peace- 
fully preparing for his last great change. To the memory of the 
minister of Grod he appears as the penitent, humble, and peaceful 
Christian, who received him with the affection of a f;ither, and 
joined with him in solemn sacrament and prayer, with the gentle- 
ness of a woman, and the humility of a child. " Out of the strong 
came forth sweetness." "How is the strong staff broken, the 
beautiful rod !" 

But not before this assembly only does the venerated image of 
the departed statesman, this day, distinctly stand. For more than 
a thousand miles — east, west, north, and south — it is known and 
remembered, that, at this place and hour, a nation's Representa- 
tives assemble to do honor to him whose fame is now a nation's 
heritage. A nation's mighty heart throbs against this Capitol, 
and beats through you. In many cities banners droop, bells toll, 
cannons boom, funereal draperies wave. In crowded streets and 
on sounding wharves, upon steamboats and upon cars, in fields and 
in workshops, in homes, in schools, millions of men, women, and 
children, have their thoughts fixed upon this scene, and say mourn- 
fully to each other, " This is the hour in which, at the Capitol, the 
nation's Representatives are burying Henry Clay." Buryi7ig 
Henry Clay! Bury the records of youi' country's history — bury 
the hearts of living millions — bury the mountains, the rivers, the 
lakes, and the spreading lands from sea to sea, with which his name 
is inseparably associated, and even then you would not bury Henry 
Clay — for he lives in other lands, and speaks in other tongues, 
and to other times than ours. 

A great mind, a great heart, a great orator, a great career, 
have been consigned to history. She will record his rare gifts of 
deep insight, keen discrimination, clear statement, rapid combina- 
tion, plain, direct, and convincing logic. She will love to dwell 
on that large, generous, magnanimous, open, forgiving heart. She 
will linger, with fond delight, on the recorded and traditional 
stories of an eloquence that was so masterful and stirring, because 
it was but /iv'mse?/, struggling to come forth on the living words — 
because, though the words were brave and strong, and beautiful 



lO 



and melodious, it was felt that, behind them there was a soul 
braver, stronger, more beautiful, and more melodious, than lan- 
guage could express. She will point to a career of statesmanship 
which has, to a remarkable degree, stamped itself on the public 
policy of the country, and reached, in beneficent practical results, 
the fields, the looms, the commercial marts, and the quiet homes 
of all the land, where his name was, with the departed fathers, and 
is with the living children, and will be, with successive generations, 
an honored household word. 

I feel, as a man, the grandeur of this career. But as an im- 
mortal, with this broken wreck of mortality, before me, with this 
scene as the " end-all" of human glory, I feel that no career is 
truly great but that of him who, whether he be illustrious or ob- 
scm-e, lives to the future in the ^present, and linking himself to the 
spiritual world, draws from Grod the life, the rule, the motive, and 
the reward of all his labor. So would that gi-eat spirit which has 
departed say to us, could he address us now. So did he realize, iu 
the calm and meditative close of life. I feel that I but utter the 
lessons which, living, were his last and best convictions, and which, 
dead, would be, could he speak to us, his solemn admonitions, 
when I say that statesmanship is then only glorious, when it is 
Christian: and that man is then only safe, and true to his duty, 
and his soul, when the life which he lives in the flesh is the life of 
faith in the Son of Grod. 

Great, indeed, is the privilege, and most honorable and useful is 
the career, of a Christian American statesman. He perceives that 
civil liberty came from the freedom wherewith Christ made its 
early martyrs and defenders free. He recognises it as one of the 
twelve manner of fruits on the Tree of Life, which, while its lower 
branches furnish the best nutriment of earth, hangs on its topmost 
boughs, which wave in Heaven, fruits that exhilarate the immor- 
tals. E.ecognising the State as God's institution, he will perceive 
that his O'wn ministry is divine. Living consciously under the eye, 
and in the love and fear of God ; redeemed by the blood of Jesus ; 
sanctified by His Spirit; loving His law; he will give himself, in 
private and in public, to the service of his Saviour. He will not 
admit that he may act on less lofty principles in public, than in 
private life ; and that he must be careful of his moral influence iu 



J 



76 

the small sphere of home and neighborhood, but need take no heed 
of it when it stretches over continents and crosses seas. He will 
know that his moral responsibility cannot be divided and distri- 
buted among others. When he is told that adherence to the 
strictest moral and religious principle is incompatible with a suc- 
cessful and eminent career, he will denounce the assertion as a 
libel on the venerated Fathers of the Republic — a libel on the 
honored living and the illustrious dead — a libel against a great 
and Christian nation — a libel against God himself, who has de- 
clared and made "godliness profitable for the life that now is." 
He will strive to make laws the transcripts of the character, and 
institutions illustrations of the providence of God. He will scan 
with admii-ation and awe the purposes of God in the future history 
of the world, in throwing open this wide Continent, from sea to 
sea, as the abode of freedom, intelligence, plenty, prosperity, and 
peace ; and feel that in giving his energies with a patriot's love, to 
the welfare of his country, he is consecrating himself, with a 
Christian's zeal, to the extension and establishment of the Re- 
deemer's kingdom. Compared with a career like this, which is 
equally open to those whose public sphere is large or small, how 
paltry are the trade of patriotism, the tricks of statesmanship, the 
rewards of successful baseness ! This hour, this scene, the vener- 
ated dead, the country, the world, the present, the future, God, 
duty, Heaven, hell, speak trumpet-tougued to all in the service of 
their country, to heware how they lay polluted or unhallowed hands 

" Upon Oie ark 
Of Iier magnificent and awful cause !" 



Such is the character of that statesmanship which alone would 
have met the full approval of the venerated dead. For the reli- 
gion which always had a place in the convictions of his mind, had 
also, within a recent period, entered into his experience, and seated 
itself in his heart. Twenty years since he wrote — "I am a mem- 
ber of no religious sect, and I am not a professor of religion. I 
regret that I am not. I wish that I was, and trust that I shall be. 
I have, and always have had, a profound regard for Christianity, 
the religion of my fathers, and for its rites, its usages, and obser- 
vances." That feeling proved that the seed sown by pious parents. 



77 

was not dead thougli stifled. A few years since, its dormant life 
was re-awakened. He was baptized in the communion of the Pro- 
testant Episcopal Church ; and during his sojourn in this city, he 
was in full communion with Trinity Parish. 

It is since his withdrawal from the sittings of the Senate, that I 
have been made particularly acquainted with his religious 
opinions, character, and feelings. From the commencement of 
his illness he always expressed to me his persuasion that its termi- 
nation would be fatal. From that period until his death, it was 
my privilege to hold frequent religious services and conversations 
with him in his room. He avowed to me his full faith in the great 
leading doctrines of the Gospel — the fall and sinfulness of man, 
the divinity of Christ, the reality and necessity of the Atone- 
ment, the need of being born again by the Spirit, and salvation 
through faith in a crucified Redeemer. His own personal hopes 
of salvation, he ever and distinctly based on the promises and the 
grace of Christ. Strikingly perceptible, on his naturally impetu- 
ous and impatient character, was the influence of grace in j^rodu- 
cing submission, and "a patient waiting for Christ," and for death. 
On one occasion he spoke to me of the pious example of one very 
near and dear to him, as that which led him deeply to feel, and 
earnestly to seek for himself, the reality and the blessedness of 
religion. On another occasion, he told me that he had been striv- 
ing to form a conception of Heaven; and he enlarged upon the 
mercy of that provision by which our Saviour became a partaker 
of our humanity, that our hearts and hopes might fix themselves 
on him. On another occasion, when he was supposed to be very 
near his end, I expressed to him the hope that his mind and heart 
were at peace, and that he was able to rest with cheerful confidence 
on the promises, and in the merits of the Redeemer. He said, 
with much feeling, that he endeavored to, and trusted that he did 
repose his salvation upon Christ; that it was too late for him to 
look at Christianity in the light of speculation ; that he had never 
doubted of its truth ; and that he now wished to throw himself 
upon it as a practical and blessed remedy. Very soon after this, I 
administered to him the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Being 
extremely feeble, and desirous of having his mind undiverted, no 
persons were present, but his son and his servant. It was a scene 



78 



long to be remembered. There, in that still chamber, at a week- 
day noon, the tides of life flowing all around us, three disciples of 
the Saviour, the minister of Grod, the dying statesman, and his ser- 
vant, a partaker of the like precious faith, commemorated their 
Saviour's dying love. He joined in the blessed sacramant with 
great feeling and solemnity, now pressing his hands together, and 
now spreading them forth, as the words of the service expressed 
the feelings, desires, supplications, confessions, and thanksgivings, 
of his heart. His eyes were dim with grateful tears, his heart was 
full of peace and love ! After this he rallied, and again I was per- 
mitted frequently to join with him in religious services, conversa- 
tion, and prayer. He grew in grace and in the knowledge of our 
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Among the books which, in con- 
nection with the "Word of God, he read most, were " Jay's Morn- 
ing and Evening Exercises," the "Life of Dr. Chalmers," and 
" The Christian Philosopher Triumphant in Death " His hope 
continued to the end to be, though true and real, tremulous with 
humility rather than rapturous with assurance. When he felt 
most the weariness of his protracted sufferings, it sufficed to sug- 
gest to him that his Heavenly Father doubtless knew, that after a 
life so long and stirring, and tempted, such a discipline of chasten- 
ing and suffering was needful to make him more meet for the in- 
heritance of the saints — and at once words of meek and patient 
acquiescence escaped his lips. 

Exhausted nature at length gave way. On the last occasion, 
when I was permitted to offer a brief prayer at his bedside, his last 
words to me were that he had hope only in Christ, and that the 
prayer which I had offered for his pardoning love, and his sancti- 
fying grace, included every thing which the dying need. On the 
evening previous to his departure, sitting for an hour in silence by 
his side, I could not but realize, when I heard him, in the slight 
wanderings of his mind to other days, and other scenes, murmur- 
ing the words, " Mij mother! Mother! Mother!" and saying "Mi/ 
dear idfe!" as if she were present, and frequently uttering aloud, 
as if in response to some silent Litany of the soul, the simple 
prayer, " Lord, have mercy upon me!" — I could not but realize 
then, and rejoice to think how near was the blessed reunion of his 
weary heart with the loved dead, and with her — Our dear Lord 



79 

gently smooth her passage to the tomb ! — who must soon follow 
him to his rest — whose spirits even then seemed to visit, and to 
cheer his memory and his hope. Gently he breathed his soul 
away into the spirit world. 

" How blest the rigliteous when they die 1 

Wlien holy souls retire to rest, 
How mildly beams the closing eye, 

How gently heaves the expiring breast ! 

" So fades the summer cloud away. 

So sinks the gale when storms are o'er. 
So gently shuts the eye of day. 

So dies the wave upon the shore !" 

Be it ours to follow him, in the same humble and submissive 
faith, to Heaven. Could he speak to us the counsels of his latest 
human, and his present Heavenly, experience, sure I am that he 
would not only admonish us to cling to the Saviour, in sickness 
and in death : but abjure us not to delay to act upon our first con- 
victions, that we might give our best powers and fullest influence 
to God, and go to the grave with a hope, unshadowed by the long 
worldliness of the past, or by the films of fear and doubt resting 
over the future. 

The strong staff is broken, and the beautiful rod is despoiled of 
its grace and bloom ; but in the light of the eternal promises, and 
by the power of Christ's resurrection, we joyfully anticipate the 
prospect of seeing that broken staff erect, and that beautiful rod 
clothed with celestial grace, and blossoming with undying life and 
blessedness in the Paradise of God. 



APPENDIX. 



BULOaY ON THE LIFE AND SEKVICES 

OP 

HENEY CLAY, 

BY 

HON. JOHN J. CRITTENDEN, 

DELIVERED 

AT LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1852. 



Ladies and Gentlemen: 

I am veiy sensible of the difficulty and magnitude of the task 

■which I have undertaken. I am to address you in commemoration 

of the public services of PIenry Clay, and in celebration of his 

obsequies. His death filled his whole country with mourning, and 

the loss of no citizen, save the Father of his Country, has ever 

produced such manifestations of the grief and homage of the public 

heart. His history has indeed been read "in a nation's eyes." A 

nation's tears proclaim, with their silent eloquence, its sense of the 

national loss. Kentucky has more than a common share in this 

national bereavement. To her it is a domestic grief — to her 

belongs the sad privilege of being the chief mourner. He was 

her favorite son, her pride, and her glory. She mourns for him as 

a mother. But let her not mourn as those who have no hope of 

consolation. She can find the richest and the noblest solace in the 

memory of her son, and of his great and good actions; and his 

fame will come back, like a comforter from his grave, to wipe away 

her tears, Even while she weeps for him her tears shall be min- 
10 81 



82 



gled with the proud feelings of triumph which his name will 
inspire; and Old Kentucky, from the depths of her affectionate 
and heroic heart, shall exclaim, like the Duke of Ormond, when 
informed that his brave son had fallen in battle, "I would not 
exchange my dead son for any living son in Christendom." 

From these same abundant sources we may hope that the 
widowed partner of his life, who now sits in sadness at Ashland, 
will derive some pleasing consolation. I presume not to offer any 
words of comfort of my own. Her grief is too sacred to permit 
me to use that privilege. 

You, Sons and Daughters of Kentucky, have assembled here to 
commemorate his life and death. How can I address you suitably 
on such a theme ? I feel the oppressive consciousness that I cannot 
do it in terms adequate to the subject, or to your excited feelings. 
I am no Orator, nor have I come here to attempt any idle or vain- 
glorious display of words ; I come as a plain Kentuckian, who, 
sympathising in all your feelings, presents you with this address, 
as his poor offering, to be laid upon that altar which you are here 
erecting to the memory of Henry Clay. Let it not be judged 
according to its own value, but according to the spu-it in which it 
is offered. 

It would be no difficult task to address you, on this occasion, in 
the extravagant and rhetorical language that is usual in funeral 
orations. But my subject deserves a different ti-eatment. The 
monumental name of Henry Clay rises above all mere personal 
favor and flattery ; it rejects them, and challenges the scrutiny and 
the judgment of the world. The noble uses to which his name 
should be applied is to teach his country, by his example, lessons 
of public virtue and political wisdom ; to teach patriots and states- 
men how to act, how to live, and how to die. I can but glance at 
a subject that spreads out in such bright and boundless expanse 
before me. 

Henry Clay lived in a most eventful period, and the history of 
his life for forty years has been literally that of his country. Ho 
was so identified with the Government for more than two-thirds 
of its existence, that during that time hardly any act, which has 
redounded to its honor, its prosperity, its present rank among the 
nations of the earth, can be spoken of witliout calling to mind 



83 

involuntarily the lineaments of his noble person. It would be 
cliiEcult to determine whether in peace or in war ; in the field of 
legislation or of diplomacy; in the spring-tide of his life, or in its 
golden ebb, he won the highest honor. It can be no disparage- 
ment to any one of his contemporaries to say, that, in all the 
points of practical statesmanship, he encountered no superior in 
any of the employments which his constituents or his country con- 
ferred upon him. 

For the reason that he had been so much and so constantly in 
the public eye, an elaborate review of his life will not be expected 
of me. All that I shall attempt will be to sketch a few leading 
traits, which may serve to give those who have had fewer oppor- 
tunities of observation than I had, something like a just idea of 
his public character and services. If, in doing this, I speak more 
at large of the earlier than of the later period of his life, it is 
because, in regard to the former, though of vast consequence, 
intervening years have thrown them somewhat in the back ground. 

Passing by, therefore, the prior service of Mr. Clay in the 
Senate for brief periods in 1806 and 'lO-'ll, I come at once to 
his Speakership in the House of Representatives, and his conse- 
quent agency in the war of 1812. 

To that war our country is indebted for much of the security, 
freedom, prosperity, and reputation, which it now enjoys. It has 
been truly said by one of the living actors in that perilous era, 
[Hon. Mr. Rush,] that the very act of going to wai' was heroic. 
By the supremacy of the naval power of England, the fleets of all 
Europe had been swept from the seas; the banner of the United 
States alone floated in solitary fearlessness. England seemed to 
encircle the earth with her navies, and to be the undisputed 
mistress of the ocean. We went out upon the deep with a sling 
in our hands. When, in all time, were such fearful odds seen as 
we had against us? 

The events of the war with England, so memorable, and even 
wonderful, are too familiar to all to require any particular recital 
on this occasion. Of that war — of its causes and consequences 
— ■ of its disasters, its bloody battles, and its glorious victories by 
land and sea, history, and our own official records, have given a 
faithful narrative. A just national pride has engraven that nar- 



84 

rative upon our hearts. But even in the fiercest conflicts of that 
war, there was nothing more truly heroic than the declaration of it 
by Congress. 

Of that declaration — of the incidents, personal influences, and 
anxious deliberations, which preceded and led to it — the history 
is not so well or generally known. The more it is known, the 
more it will appear how important was the part that Mr. Clay 
acted, and how much we are indebted to him for all the glorious 
and beneficial issues of the declaration of that war, which has not 
inappropriately been called the Second War of Independence. 

The public grounds of the war were the injustice, injury, and 
insults inflicted on the United States by the Government of Great 
Britain, then engaged in a war of maritime edicts with France, of 
which the commerce of the United States was the victim ; our 
merchant ships being captured by British cruisers on every sea, 
and confiscated by her courts, in utter contempt of the rights of 
this nation as an independent Power. Added to this, and more 
offensive than even those outrages, was the arrogation, by the same 
Power, of a right to search American vessels, for the purpose 
of impressing seamen from vessels sailing under the American flag. 
These aggressions upon our national rights constituted, undoubt- 
edly, justifiable cause of war. With equal justice on our part, 
and on the same grounds, (impressment of seamen excepted,) we 
should have been warranted in declaring war against France also ; 
but common sense (not to speak of policy) forbade our engaging 
with two nations at once, and dictated the selection, as an adver- 
sary, of the one that had i30wer, which the other had not, to carry 
its arbitrary edicts into full effect. The war was really, on our 
part, a war for national existence. 

When Congress assembled in November, 1811, the crisis was 
upon us. But, as may be readily imagined, it could be no easy 
matter to nerve the heart of Congress, all unprepared for the dread 
encounter, to take the step, which there could be no retracing, of a 
declaration of war. 

Nor could that task, in all probability, ever have been accom- 
plished, but for the concurrence, purely accidental, of two circum- 
stances : the one, the presence of Henry Clay in the Chair of the 
popular branch of the National Legislature, and the other, that of 



85 

James Monroe, as Secretary of State, in the Executive Adminis- 
tration of the Government. 

Mr. Monroe had returned but a year or two before from a course 
of public service abroad, in whicli, as Minister Plenipotentiary, he 
had represented the United States at the several courts, in suc- 
cession, of France, Spain, and Great Britain. From the last of 
these missions he had come homo thoroughly disgusted with the 
contemptuous manner in which the rights of the United States 
were treated by the belligerent Powers, and especially by England. 
This treatment, which even extended to the personal intercourse 
between their Ministers and the Representatives of this country, 
he considered as indicative of a settled determination on their 
parts — presuming upon the supposed incapacity of this Govern- 
ment for war — to reduce to system a course of conduct calculated 
to debase and prostrate us in the eyes of the world. Reasoning 
thus, he had brought his mind to a serious and firm conviction, 
that the rights of the United States, as a nation, would never be 
respected by the Powers of the Old World until this Government 
summoned up resolution to resent such usage, not by arguments 
and protests merely, but by an appeal to arms. Full of this sen- 
timent, Mr. Monroe was oalled, upon a casual vacancy, when it 
was least expected by himself or the country, to the head of the 
Department of State. That sentiment, and the feelings which we 
have thus accounted for, Mr. Monroe soon communicated to his 
associates in the Cabinet, and, m some degree, it might well be 
supposed, to the great statesman then at the head of the Govern- 
ment. 

The tone of President Madison's first message to Congress, 
(November 5, 1811,) a few months only after Mr. Monroe's acces- 
sion to the Cabinet, can leave hardly a doubt in any mind of such 
having been the case. That message was throughout of the gravest 
cast, reciting the aggressions and aggravations of Great Britain, 
as demanding resistance, and urging upon Congress the duty of 
putting the country "into an armor and an attitude demanded by 
the crisis, and corresponding with the national spirit and expec- 
tations." 

It was precisely at this point of time that Mr. Clay, having 
resigned his seat in the Senate, appeared on the floor of the House 



86 



of Representatives, and was chosen, almost by acclamation, Speaker 
of that body. From that moment he exercised an influence, in a 
great degree personal, whicli materially affected, if it did not con- 
trol, the judgment of the House. Among the very first acts which 
devolved upon him, by virtue of his office, was the appointment 
of the committees raised upon the President's message. Upon the 
Select Committee of nine members, to which was referred "so 
much of the message as relates to our foreign relations," he ap- 
pointed a large proportion from among the fiist friends of the 
Administration, nearly all of them being new members, and 
younger than himself, though he was not then more than thirty- 
five years of age. It is impossible, at this day, to call to mind the 
names of which this committee was composed, (Porter, Calhoim, 
and Grundy, being the first named among them,) without coming 
to the conclusion that the committee was constituted with a view 
to the event predetermined in the mind of the Speaker. There 
can be no question that when, quitting the Senate, Mr. Clay 
entered the Representative body, he had become satisfied that, by 
the continued encroachments of Great Britain on our national 
rights, the choice of the country was narrowed down to war or 
submission. Between these there could be no hesitation in such 
a mind as that of Mr. Clay which to choose. In this emergency 
he acted for his country, as he would, in a like case, have acted 
for himself Desiring and cultivating the good will of all, he never 
shrank from any personal responsibility, nor cowered before any 
danger. More than a year before his accession to the House of 
Rejjresentatives he had, in a debate in the Senate, taken occasion 
to say, that "he most sincerely desired peace and amity with 
England; that he even preferred an adjustment of all differences 
with her, to one with any other nation ; but, if she persisted in a 
denial of justice to us, he trusted and hoped that all hearts would 
unite in a bold and vigorous vindication of our rights." It was in 
this brave spirit, animated to increased fervency by intervening 
aggressions from the same quarter, that Mr. Clay entered into the 
House of Representatives. 

Early in the second month of the session, availinj? him,«<=ilf of 
the right then freely used by the Speaker, to engage T disc-"sions 
while the House was in Committee of the Whole, he dashe.i into 



87 



the debates ii2)on the measures of military and naval preparation 
recommended by the President, and reported upon favorably by 
the committee. He avowed, without reserve, that the object of 
this preparation was war, and %var tcitli Great Britain. 

In these debates he showed his familiarity with all the weapons 
of popular oratory. In a tempest of elocjuence, in which he 
wielded alternately argument, persuasion, remonstrance, ridicule, 
and reproach, he swept before him all opposition to the high re- 
solve to which he exhorted Congress. To the argument (for 
example) against preparing for a war with England, founded upon 
the idea of her being engaged, in her conflict with France, in 
fighting the battles of the world, he replied, that such a purpose 
would be best achieved by a scrupulous observance of the rights 
of others, and by respecting that public law which she professed 
to vindicate. " Then" said he, " she would command the sym- 
pathies of the world. But what are ve required to do, by those 
who would engage our feelings and wishes in her behalf? To 
hear the actual cuffs of her arrogance, that we may escape a chi- 
merical French subjugation. We are called upon to submit to 
debasement, dishonor, and disgrace; to bow the neck to royal 
insolence, as a course of preparation for manly resistance to Gallic 
invasion ! What nation, what individual, was ever taught in the 
schools of ignominious suhmission these patriotic lessons of freedom 
and independence !" And to the argument that this Grovernment 
was unfit for any war but a war against invasion — so signally 
since disproved by actual events — he exclaimed, with character- 
istic vehemence, " What ! is it not equivalent to invasion, if the 
mouth of our harbors and outlets are blocked up, and we are de- 
nied egress from our own waters? Or, when the burglar is at our 
door, shall we bravely sally forth and repel his felonious entrance, 
or meanly skulk within the cells of the castle ? * * * 

What! shall it be said that o(fr amor patriae is located at these 
desks; that we pusillanimously cling to our seats here, rather than 
boldly vindicate the most inestimable rights of our country?" 

Whilst in debate upon other occasions, at nearly the same time, 
he showed how well he could reason upon a question which de- 
manded argument rather than declamation. To his able support 
of the proposition of Mr. Cheves to add to our then small but gal- 



88 



»ant navy ten frigates, may be ascribed the success, thougli by a 
lean majority, of that proposition. Replying to the objection 
urged with zeal by certain members, that navies were dangerous 
to liberty, he argued that the source of this alarm was in tlicm- 
selves. " Grentlemen fear," said lie, " that if we provide a marine, 
it will produce collision with foreign nations, plunge us into war, 
and ultimately overturn the constitution of the country. Sir, if 
you wish to avoid foreign collision, you had better abandon the 
ocean, surrender all your commerce, give up all your prosperity. 
It is the thing protected, not the instrument of protection, that in- 
volves you in war. Commerce engenders collision, collision war, 
and war, the argument supposes, leads to despotism. Would the 
counsels of that statesman be deemed wise, who would recommend 
that the nation should be unai-med ; that the art of war, the mar- 
tial spirit and martial exercises, should be prohibited ; who should 
declare, in a word, that the great body of the people should be 
taught that national happiness was to be found in perpetual peace 
alone ?" 

While Mr. Clay, in the Capitol, was, with his trumpet tongue, 
rousing Congress to prepare for war, Mr. Monroe, the Secretary 
of State, gave his powerful co-operation, and lent the Nestor-like 
sanction of his age and experience to the bold measures of his 
young and more ardent compatriot. It was chiefly through their 
fearless influence that Congress was gradually warmed up to a war 
spirit, and to the adoption of some preparatory measures. But no 
actual declaration of war had yet been proposed. There was a 
strong opposition in Congress, and the President, Mr. Madison, 
hesitated to reeoinmend it, only because he doubted whether Con- 
gress was yet sufiiciently determined and resolved to maintain such 
a declaration, and to maintain it to all the extremities of war. 

The influence and counsel of Mr. Clay again prevailed. He 
waited upon the President, at the head of a deputation of mem- 
bers of Congress, and assured him of the readiness of a majority 
of Congress to vote the war if recommended by him. Upon this 
the President immediately recommended it by his message to 
Congress of the first Monday of June, 1812. A bill declaring war 
with Great Britain soon followed in Congress, and, after a discus- 



89 

sion in secret session for a few days, became a law. Then began 
the war. 

AVhen the doors of the House of Representatives were opened, 
the debates which had taken place in secret session were spoken 
of and repeated, and it appeared, as must have been expected by 
all, that Mr. Clay had been the great defender and champion of 
the declaration of war. 

Mr. Clay continued in the House of Representatives for some 
time after the commencement of the war, and having assisted in 
doing all that could be done for it in the way of legislation, vras 
withdrawn from his position in Congress to share in the delibera- 
tions of the great Conference of American and British Commis- 
sioners held at Ghent. His part in that Convention was such as 
might have been expected from his course in Congress, high-toned 
and high-spirited, despairing of nothing. 

I need not add, but for form, that, acting in this spirit, Mr. 
Clay and his patriotic and able associates succeeded beyond all 
the hopes at that time entertained at home in making a treaty, 
which, in putting a stop to the war, if it did not accomplish every 
thing contended for, saved and secured at all points the honor of 
the United States. 

Thus began and ended the war of 1812. On our part it was 
just and necessary, and, in its results, eminently beneficial and 
honorable. 

The benefits of it have extended to all the world ; for in vindi- 
cating our own maritime rights we established the freedom of the 
seas to all nations, and since then no one of them has arrogated or 
exercised any supremacy upon that ocean, given by the Almighty 
as the common and equal inheritance of all. 

To Henry Clay, as its chief mover and author, belongs the 
statesman's portion of the glory of that war; and to the same 
Henry Clay, as one of the makers and signers of the treaty by 
which it was terminated, belong the blessings of the peace-maker. 
His crown is made up of the jewels of peace and of war. 

Prompt to take up arms to resent our wrongs and vindicate our 
national rights, the return of peace was yet gladly hailed by the 
whole country. And well it might be. Our military character, 
at the lowest point of degradation when we dared the fight, had 



90 



been retrieved; the national honor, insulted at all the courts of 
Europe, had been redeemed ; the freedom of the seas secured to 
our flag and all who sail under it; and, what was most influential 
in inspiring confidence at home, and assuring respect abroad, was 
the demonstration, by the result of the late conflict, of the compe- 
tency of this Grovernment for efiieetive war, as it had before proved 
itself for all the duties of a season of peace. 

The Congress which succeeded the war, to a seat in which Mr. 
Clay was elected whilst yet abroad, exhibited the features of a 
national jubilee, in place of the gravity and almost gloom which 
had settled on the countenance of the same body during the latter 
part of the war and of the conferences of Ghent. Joy shone on 
every face. Justly has that period been termed " the era of good 
feeling." Again placed in the chair of the House of Representa- 
tives, and all-important questions being then considered as in 
Committee of the Whole, in which the Speaker descends to the 
floor of the House, Mr. Clay distinguished himself in the debates 
upon every question of interest that came up, and was the author, 
during that and following Congresses, of more important measui-es 
than it has been the fortune of any other member, either then or 
since, to have his name identified with. 

It would exceed the proper limits of this discourse to particu- 
larize all those measures. I can do no more than refer to a very 
few of them which have become landmarks in the history of our 
country. 

First in order of these was his origination of the first proposi- 
tion for a recognition of the independence of the States of South 
America, then struggling for liberty. This was on the 24th of 
March, 1818. It was on that day that he first formally presented 
the proposition to the House of Representatives. But neither the 
President nor Congress was then prepared for a measure so bold 
and decisive; and it was rejected by a large rhajority of the House, 
though advocated and urged by him with all the vehemence and 
power of his unsurpassed ability and eloquence. Undaunted by 
this defeat, he continued to pursue the subject with all the inflex- 
ible energy of his character. On the 3d of April, 1820, he re- 
newed his proposition for the recognition of South American inde- 
pendence, and finally succeeded, against strong opposition, not 



91 



only in passing it through the House of Representatives, but in 
inducing that body to adopt the emphatic and extraordinary course 
of sending it to the President by a committee, specially appointed 
for the purpose. Of that committee Mr. Clay was the chairman, 
and, at its head, performed the duty assigned them. In the year 
1822 Mr. Clay's noble exertions on this great subject were 
crowned with complete success, by the President's formal recogni- 
tion of South American independence, with the sanction of 
Congress. 

It requires some little exertion, at this day, to turn our minds 
back, and contemplate the vast importance of the revolutions then 
in progress in South America, as the subject was then presented, 
with all the uncertainties and perils that surrounded it. Those 
revolutions constituted a great movement in the moral and politi- 
cal world. By their results great interests and great principles, 
throughout the civilized world, and especially in our own country, 
might and probably would be materially affected. 

Mr. Clay comprehended the crisis. Its magnitude and its 
character were suited to his temper, and to his great intellect. 
He saw before him, throughout the vast continent of South Ame- 
rica, the people of its various States, or provinces, struggling to 
cast off that Spanish oppression and tyranny which for three hun- 
dred years had weighed them down, and seeking to reclaim and 
re-establish their long-lost liberty and independence. He saw 
them not only struggling, but succeeding ; and, with their naked 
hands, breaking their chains, and driving their oppressors before 
them. But the conflict was not yet over ; Spain still continued to 
wage formidable and desperate hostilities against her colonies, to 
reduce them to submission. They were still struggling and 
bleeding, and the result yet depended on the uncertain issue of war. 

"What a spectacle was there presented to the contemplation of 
the world! The prime object of attention and interest there to 
be seen was man l>ravely struggling foi' liberty. That was enough 
for Henry Clay. His generous soul overflowed with sympathy. 
But this was not all ; there were graver and higher considerations 
that belonged to the subject, and these were all felt and apprecia- 
ted by Mr. Clay. 



92 



If Soutb America was resubjugated by Spain, she would, in 
effect, become European, and relapse into the system of European 
policy — the system of legitimacy, monarchy, and absolutism; on 
the other hand, if she succeeded in establishing her independence, 
the lyrinciple of free institutions would be established with it, and 
republics kindred to our own would rise up to protect, extend, and 
defend the rights and liberties of mankind. 

It was not, then, a mere struggle between Spain and her colo- 
nies. In its consequences, at least, it went much further, and, in 
effect, was a contest between the great antagonist principles and 
systems of arbitrary European Governments and of free American 
Grovernments. Whether the millions of people who inhabited, or 
were to inhabit, South America, were to become the victims and 
the instruments of the arbitrary princy^Zc, or the supporters of the 
free p>rincip)le, was a question of momentous consequence now and 
in all time to come. 

With these views Mr. Clay, from sympathy and policy, em- 
braced the cause of South American independence. He proposed 
no actual intervention in her behalf, but he wished to aid her with 
all the moral power and encoviragement that could be given by a 
welcome recognition of her by the Government of the United 
States. 

To him belongs the distinguished honor of being first among 
the statesmen of the world to espouse and plead the cause of South 
America, and to propose and urge the recognition of her indepen- 
dence. And his own country is indebted to him for the honor of 
being the first nation to offer that recognition. 

When the magnitude of the subject and the weighty interest 
and consequences attached to it are considered, it seems to me 
that there is no more palmy day in the life of Mr. Clay than that 
in which, at the head of his committee, he presented to the Presi- 
dent the resolution of the House of llepresentatives in favor of 
the recognition of South American independence. On that occa- 
sion he appears in all the sublimity of his natui-e, and the states- 
man, invested with all the sympathies and feelings of humanity, is 
enlarged and elevated into the character of the friend and guar- 
dian of universal liberty. 



93 



How far South America may have been aided or influenced in 
her struggles by the recognition of our Government, or by the 
noble appeals which Mr. Clay had previously addressed, in her 
behalf, to Congi-ess and to the world, I cannot say ; but it is known 
that those speeches were read at the head of her armies, and that 
grateful thanks were returned. It is not too much to suppose that 
he exercised great influence in her afitiirs and destinies. 

Years after the first of Mr. Clay's noble exertions in the cause 
of South America, and some time after those exertions had led the 
Government of the United States to recognise the new States of 
South America, they were also recognised by the Government of 
Great Britain, and Mr. Canning, her minister, thereupon took 
occasion to sa}^ in the House of Commons, "there (alluding to 
South America) I have called a new world into existence !" That 
was a vain boast. If it can be said of any man, it must be said 
of Henry Clay that he called that " new world into existence."* 

Mr. Clay was the Father of the policy of Internal Improvement 
by the General Government. The exjjediency of such legislation 
had indeed been suggested, in one of his later annual messages to 
Congress, by President Jefferson, and that suggestion was revived 
by President Madison in the last of Ids annual messages. The 
late Bank of the United States having been then just established, 
a bill passed, in supposed conformity to Mr. Madison's recommen- 
dation, for setting aside the annual bonus to be paid by the Bank, 
as a fund for the purposes of Internal Improvement. This bill Mr. 
Madison very unexpectedly, on the last day of the term of his 
office, returned to the House of Kepresentatives without his signa- 
ture, assigning the reasons for his withholding it — reasons which 
related rather to the form than the substance — and recommending 
an amendment to the Constitution to confer upon Congress the 
necessary power to carry out that policy. The bill, of course, fell 
through for that session. While this bill was on its passage, Mr. 
Clay had spoken in favor of it, declaring his own decided opinion 
in favor of the constitutionality and expediency of the measure. 
Mr. Monroe, immediately succeeding Mr. Madison in the Presi- 



94 

dency, introduced into his first annual message a declaration, in 
advance of any proposition on the subject, of a settled conviction 
on his mind that Congress did not possess the right to enter upon 
a system of Internal Improvement. But for this declaration, it 
may be doubted that the subject would have been again agitated 
so soon after Mr. Madison's veto. The threat of a recurrence to 
that resort by the new President roused up a spirit of defiance in 
the popular branch of Congress, and especially in the lion heart of 
Mr. Clay ; and, by his advice and counsel, a resolution was intro- 
duced, declaring that Congress has power, under the Constitution, 
to make appropriations for the construction of military roads, post' 
roads, and canals. Upon this proposition, in committee of the 
whole House, Mr. Clay attacked, with all his powers of argument, 
wit, and raillery, the interdiction in the message. He considered 
that the question was now one between the Executive, on the one 
hand, and the Representatives of the people on the other, and that 
it was so understood by the country ; that if, by the communica- 
tion of his opinion to Congress, the President intended to prevent 
discussion, he had "most wofuUy failed;" that in having (Mr. 
Clay had no doubt with the best motives) volunteered his opinions 
upon the subject, he had "inverted the order of legislation, by 
beginning where it should end ;" and, after an able and unanswer- 
able argument on the question of the power, concluded by saying : 
"If we do notliing this session hut pass an abstract resolution on 
the subject, I shall, under all circumstances, consider it a triumph 
for the best interests of the country, of which posterity will, if we 
do not, reap the benefit." And the abstract resolution did pass, 
by a vote of 90 to 75 ; and a trium2yh it was which Mr. Clay had 
every right to consider as his own, and all the more grateful to his 
feelings, because he had hardly hoped for it. 

Referring to the final success, at a distance of thirty-five years, 
of the principle thus established, in the recent passage by Con- 
gress of the act for the improvement of certain of the ports and 
harbors and navigable rivers of the country, let " Posterity " not 
forget, on this occasion, to what honored name is undoubtedly due 
the credit of the first legislative assertion of the power. 

Mr. Clay was, perhaps, the only man since Washington who 
could have said, with entire truth, as he did, "■ I had rather he 



I 



95 



rigid than he President.''^ Honor and patriotism were his great 
and distinguishing traits. The first had its spring and support in 
his fearless spirit ; the second in his peculiar Americanism of sen- 
timent. It was those two principles which ever threw his whole 
soul into every contest where the public interest was deeply 
involved, and, above all, into every question which in the least 
menaced the integrity of the Union. This last was, with him, 
the arh of the covenant; and he was ever as ready to peril his own 
life in its defence, as he was to pronounce the doom of a traitor on 
any one who would dare to touch it with hostile hands. It was 
the ardor of this devotion to his country, and to the sheet anchor 
of its liberty and safety, the Union of the States, that rendered 
him so conspicuous in every conflict that threatened either one or 
the other with harm. All are familiar with his more recent, indeed 
his last, great struggle for his country, when the foundation of the 
Union trembled under the fierce sectional agitation, so happily 
adjusted and pacified by the wise measures of compromise which 
he proposed in the Senate, and which were, in the end, in sub- 
stance adopted. That brilliant epoch in his history is fi-esh in the 
memory of all who hear me, and will never be forgotten by them. 
An equally glorious success achieved by his patriotism, his reso- 
luteness, and the great power of his oratory, was one which few 
of this assembly are old enough vividly to remember, but which, 
in the memory of those who witnessed the effort, and the success 
of that greatest triumph of his master spirit, will ever live the 
most interesting in the life of the great statesman. I mean the 
Missouri controversy. Then, indeed, did common courage quail, 
and hope seem to shrink before the storm that burst upon and 
threatened to overwhelm the Union. 

Into the history of what is still familiarly known as the " Mis- 
souri question," it is not necessary, if time would allow, that I 
should enter at any length. The subject of the controversy, as all 
my hearers know, was the disposition of the House of Represen- 
tatives, manifested on more than one occasion, and by repeated 
votes, to require, as a condition of the admission of the Territory 
of Missouri into the Union as a State, the perpetual prohibition 
of the introduction of slavery into the Territories of the United 
States west of the Mississippi. During the conflict to which this 



96 



proposition gave rise in 1820, the deTb<at:es were from the beginning 
earnest, prolonged, and excited. In the earlier stages of them Mr. 
Clay exerted, to tlie utmost, his powers of argument, conciliation, 
and persuasion, speaking on one occasion, it is stated, for four and 
a half hours without intermission. A bill finally passed both 
Houses, authorizing the people of the Territory of Missouri to form 
a Constitution of State Government, with the prohibition of slavery 
restricted to the territory lying north of 36° 30' of north latitude. 
This was in the first session of the sixteenth Congress, Mr. Clay 
still being Speaker of the House. On the approach of the second 
session of this Congress, Mr. Clay being compelled by his private 
afi"airs to remain at home, forwarded his resignation as Speaker, 
but retained his seat as a member, in view of the pendency of this 
question. Mr. Taylor, of New York, the zealous advocate of the 
prohibition of slavery in Missouri and elsewhere in the West, was 
chosen Spcalcer to succeed Mr. Clay. This fact, of itself, imder 
all the circumstances, was ominous of what was to follow. 
Alarmed, apparently, at this aspect of things, Mr. Clay resumed 
his seat in the House on the 16th of January, 1821. The Con- 
stitution formed by Missouri and transmitted to Congress, under 
the authority of the act passed in the preceding session, con- 
tained a provision (superfluous even for its own object) making 
it the duty of the General Assembly, as soon as might be, to 
pass an act to prevent free negroes and mulattoes from coming 
to, or settling in, the State of Missouri, " upon any pretext what- 
ever." The reception of the Constitution, with this offensive pro- 
vision in it, was the signal of discord, apparently irreconcilable ; 
when, just as it had risen to its height, Mr. Clay, on the 16th of 
January, 1821, resumed his seat in the House of Representatives. 
Less than six weeks of the term of Constress then remained. The 
great hold which he had upon the affections, as well as the respect, 
of all parties, induced upon his arrival a momentary lull in the 
tempest. He at once engaged earnestly and solicitously in counsel 
with all parties in this alarming controversy, and, on the second 
of February, moved the appointment of a committee of thirteen 
members to consider the subject. The report of that committee, 
after four days of conference, in which the feelings of all parties 
had clearly been consulted, notwithstanding it was most earnestly 



97 



supported by Mr. Clay in a speech of such power and pathos as 
to draw tears from many hearers, was rejected by a vote of 83 nays 
to 80 yeas. No one, not a witness, can conceive the intense ex- 
citement which existed at this moment within and without the 
walls of Congress, aggravated as it was by the arrival of the day 
for counting the electoral votes for President and Vice President, 
amongst which was tendered the vote of Missouri as a State, 
though not yet admitted as such. Her vote was disposed of by 
being counted hypothetically — that is to say, that with the vote of 
Missouri, the then state of the general vote would be so and so ; 
without it, so and so. If her vote, admitted, would have changed 
the residt, no one can pretend to say how disastrous the conse- 
quences might not have been. 

On Mr. Clay alone now rested the hopes of all rational and 
dispassionate men for a final adjustment of this question ; and one 
week only, with three days of grace, remained of the existence of 
that Congress. On the twenty-second of the month, Mr. Clay 
made a last effort, by moving the appointment of a Joint Com- 
mittee of the two Houses, to consider and report whether it was 
expedient or not to make provision for the admission of Missouri 
into the Union, on the same footing of the original States ; and if 
not, whether any other provision, adapted to her actual condition, 
ought to be made by law. The motion was agreed to, and a com- 
mittee of twenty-three members appointed by ballot under it. 
The report by that committee ( a modification of the previously 
rejected report) was ratified by the House, but by the close vote, 
87 to 81. The Senate concurred, and so this distracting question 
was at last settled, with an acquiescence in it by all parties, which 
has never been since disturbed. 

I have already spoken of this as the great triumph of Mr. Clay ; 
I might have said, the greatest civil triumph ever achieved by 
mortal man. It was one towards which the combination of the 
highest ability, and the most commanding eloquence, would have 
labored in vain. There would still have been wanting the ardor, 
the vehemence, the impetuousness of character of Henry Clay, 
under the influence of which he sometimes overleaped all barriers, 
and carried his point literally by storm. One incident of this kind 
is well remembered in connexion with the Missouri question. It 
11 



98 

was in an evening sitting, whilst this question was yet in suspense 
Mr. Clay had made a motion to allow one or two members to vote 
who had been absent when their names were called. The Speaker, 
(Mr. Taylor,) who, to a naturally equable temperament, added a 
most provoking calmness of manner when all around him was ex- 
citement, blandly stated, for the information of the gentleman, that 
the motion "was not in order." Mr. Clay then moved to suspend 
the rule forbidding it, so as to allow him to make the motion; but 
the Speaker, with imperturbable serenity, informed him that, 
according to the Rules and Orders, such a motion could not be 
received without the unanimous consent of the House. " T'Aen," 
said Mr. Clay, exerting his voice even beyond its highest wont, 
" I move to suspend all the rules of the House. Away with them! 
Is it to be endured that we shall be trammelled in our action by 
mere forms and technicalities at a moment like this, when the 
peace, and perhaps the existence, of this Union is at stake ?" 

Besides those to which I have alluded, Mr. Clay performed 
many other signal public sei'vices, any one of which would have 
illustrated the character of any other American statesman. Among 
these we cannot refrain from mentioning his measures for the pro- 
tection of American industry, and his compromise measures of 
1833, by which the country was relieved from the dangers and 
agitations produced by the doctrine and spirit of "nullification." 
Indeed his name is identified with all the great measures of Grov- 
ernment during the long period of his public life. 

But the occasion does not permit me to proceed further with the 
review of his public services. History will record them to his 
honor. 

Henry Clay was indebted to no adventitious circumstances for 
the success and glory of his life. Sprung from an humble stock, 
he " was fashioned to much honor from his cradle ;" and he achieved 
it by the noble use of the means which God and nature had given 
him. He was no scholar, and had none of the advantages of col- 
legiate education. But there was a " divinity that stirred within 
him." He was a man of genius mighty enough to supply all the 
defects of education. By its keen, penetrating observation, its 
quick apprehension, its comprehensive and clear conception, he 
gathered knowledge without the study of books ; he could draw it 



99 

from the fountain head, pure and undefiled. It was unborrowed 
— -the acquisition of his own observation, reflection, and experience, 
and all his own. It entered into the composition of the man, 
forming part of his mind, and strengthening and preparing him 
for all those great scenes of intellectual exertion or controversy in 
which his life was spent. His armor was always on, and he was 
ever ready for the battle. 

This mighty genius was accompanied, in him, by all the quali- 
ties necessary to sustain its action, and to make it irresistible. His 
person was tall and commanding, and his demeanor — 

" Lofty and sour to them that loved him not ; 
But to tliose men that sought him, sweet as summer." 

He was direct and honest, ardent and fearless, prompt to form 
his opinions, always bold in their avowal, and sometimes impetu- 
ous, or even rash, in their vindication. In the performance of his 
duties he feared no responsibility. He scorned all evasion or 
untruth. No pale thoughts ever troubled his decisive mind. " Be 
just and fear not," was the sentiment of his heart, and the prin- 
ciple of his action. It regulated his conduct in private and public 
life ; all the ends he aimed at were his country's, his God's, and 
truth's. 

Such was Henry Clay, and such were his talents, qualities, and 
objects. Nothing but success and honor could attend such a 
character. I have adverted briefly to some portions of his public 
life. For nearly half a century he was an informing spirit, a bril- 
liant and heroic figure in our political sphere, marshalling our 
country in the way she ought to go. The "bright track of his 
fiery car" may be traced through the whole space over which, in 
his day, his country and its Grovernment have passed in the way 
to greatness and renown. It will still point the way to further 
greatness and renown. 

The great objects of his public life were to preserve and 
strengthen the Union ; to maintain the Constitution and laws of 
the United States ; to cherish industry ; to protect labor ; and fa- 
cilitate, by all proper national improvements, the communication 
between all the parts of our widely-extended country. This was 
his American system of policy. With inflexible patriotism he 



100 



pursued and advocated it to his end. He was every inch an 
American. His heart, and all that there was of him, were devoted 
to his country, to its liberty, and its free institutions. He inherit- 
ed the spii'it of the revolution, in the midst of which he was born ; 
and the love of liberty and the pride of freedom were in him prin- 
ples of action. 

A remarkable trait in his character was his inflexibility in de- 
fending the public interest against all schemes for its detriment. 
His exertions were, indeed, so steadily employed and so often suc- 
cessful in protecting the public against the injurious designs of 
visionary politicians or party demagogues, that he may be almost 
said to have been, during forty years, the guardian angel of the 
country. He never would compromise the public interest for any 
body, or for any personal advantage to himself. 

He was the advocate of liberty throughout the world, and his 
voice of cheering was raised in behalf of every people who strug- 
gled for freedom. Greece, awakened from a long sleep of servi- 
tude, heard his voice, and was reminded of her own Demosthenes. 
South America, too, in her struggle for independence, heard his 
brave words of encouragement, and her fainting heart was anima- 
ted, and her arm made strong. 

Henry Clay was the fair representative of the age in which he 
lived ; an age which forms the great and bi'ightest era in the his- 
tory of man ; an age teeming with new discoveries and develop- 
ments, extending in all directions the limits of human knowledge, 
exploring the agencies and elements of the physical world, and 
turning and subjugating them to the use of man; unfolding and 
establishing practically the great principles of popular rights and 
free governments, and which, nothing doubting, nothing fearing, 
still advances in majesty, aspiring to and demanding further im- 
provement and further amelioration of the condition of mankind. 

With the chivalrous and benignant spirit of this great era 
Henky Clay was thoroughly imbued. He was indeed moulded 
by it, and made in its own image. That spirit, be it remembered, 
was not one of licentiousness, or turbulence, or blind innovation. 
It was a wise spirit, good and honest as it was resolute and brave ; 
and truth and justice were its companions and guides. 



101 

These noble qualties of truth and justice were conspicuous in 
the whole public life of Mr. Clay. On that solid foundation he 
stood, erect and fearless; and when the storms of State beat 
around and threatened to overwhelm him, his exclamation was 
still heard, " truth is mighty and public justice certain." What a 
magnificent and heroic figure does Henry Clay here present to 
the world ! We can but stand before and look upon it in silent 
reverence. His appeal was not in vain ; the passions of party sub- 
sided; truth and justice resumed their sway, and his generous 
countrymen repaid him, for all the wrong they had done, with 
gratitude, affection, and admiration in his life, and with tears for 
his death. 

It has been objected to Henry Clay that he was ambitious. So 
he was. But In him ambition was a virtue. It sought only the 
proper, fair objects of honorable ambition, and it sought these by 
honorable means only — by so serving the country as to deserve 
its favors and its honors. If he sought office, It was for the pur- 
pose of enabling him, by the power it would give, to serve his 
country more effectually and pre-eminently ; and, if he expected 
and desired thereby to advance his own fame, who will say that 
was a fault ? Who will say that it was a fault to seek and to 
desire office for any of the personal gratifications it may afford, so 
long as those gratifications are made subordinate to the public 
good? 

That Henry Clay's object In desiring office was to serve his 
country, and that he would have made all other considerations 
subservient, I have no doubt. I knew him well ; I had full op- 
portunity of observing him in his most unguarded moments and 
conversations, and I can say that I have never known a more un- 
selfish, a more faithful or Intrepid representative of the people, of 
the people's rights, and the people's Interests than Henry Clay. 
It was most fortunate for Kentucky to have such a representative, 
and most fortunate for him to have such a constituent as Ken- 
tucky — fortunate for him to have been thrown, In the early and 
susceptible period of his life, into the primitive society of her bold 
and free people. As one of her children, I am pleased to think 
that from that source he derived some of the magnanimity and 
energy which his after life so signally displayed. I am pleased to 



102 



think that, miugliug with all his great qualities, there was a sort 
of Kenluohyimn, (I shall not undertake to define it,) which, though 
it may not have polished or refined, gave to them additional point 
and power, and a freer scope of action. 

Mr. Clay was a man of profound judgment and strong will. 
He never doubted or faltered; all his qualities were positive and 
peremptory; and to his convictions of public duty he sacrificed 
eveiy personal consideration. 

With but little knowledge of the rules of logic or of rhetoric, he 
was a great debater and orator. There was no art in his elo- 
quence, no studied contrivances of language. It was the natural 
outpouring of a great and ardent intellect. In his speeches there 
were none of the trifles of mere fancy and imagination ; all was to 
the subject in hand, and to the purpose ; and they may be regarded 
as great actions of the mind rather than fine displays of words. I 
doubt whether the eloquence of Demosthenes or Cicero ever exer- 
cised a greater influence over the minds and passions of the people 
of Athens and of Rome than did Mr. Clay's over the minds and 
passions of the people of the United States. 

You all knew Mr. Clay : your knowledge and recollection of 
him wiU present him more vividly to your minds than any picture 
I can draw of him. This I will add: he was, in the highest, 
truest sense of the term, a great man, and we ne'er shall look upon 
his like again. He has gone to join the mighty dead in another 
and better world. How little is there of such a man that can die ! 
His fame, the memory of his benefactions, the lessons of his wis- 
dom, all remain with us ; over these death has no power. 

How few of the great of this world have been so fortunate as 
he ! How few of them have lived to see their labors so rewarded. 
He lived to see the country that he loved and served advanced to 
great prosperity and renown, and still advancing. He lived till 
every prejudice which, at any period of his life, had existed against 
him, was removed ; and until he had become the object of the 
reverence, gratitude, and love of his whole country. His work 
seemed then to be completed, and fate could not have selected a 
happier moment to remove him from the troubles and vicissitudes 
of this life. 



103 



Glorious as his life was, there was nothing that became him like 
the leaving of it. I saw him frequently during the slow and lin- 
gering disease which terminated his life. He was conscious of his 
approaching end, and prepared to meet it with all the resignation 
and fortitude of a Christian hero. He was all patience, meekness, 
and gentleness ; these shone around him like a mild, celestial light, 
breaking upon him from another world. 

" And, to add greater honors to his age 
Than man could give, he died fearing God." 





^2-t>-7-i>— 



d.^^- 






OBITUARY HONORS 



TO THE MEMORY OF 



DANIEL WEESTEE. 



IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, 

Tuesday, December 14, 1852. 

Mr. JOHN DAVIS, of Massachusetts, rose and addressed the Senate, 
as follows : 

Mr. President: I rise to bring to the notice of the Senate an 
event which has touched the sensibilities and awakened sympathies 
in all parts of the country; an event which has appropriately found 
a place in the message of the President, and ought not to be passed 
in silence by the Senate. 

Sir, we have within a short space mourned the death of a suc- 
cession of men illustrious by their services, their talents, and worth. 
Not only have seats in this Chamber, in the other House, and upon 
the bench of the Court been vacated, but Death has entered the 
Executive mansion, and claimed that beloved patriot who filled the 
Chair of State. 

The portals of the tomb had scarcely closed upon the remains 
of a great and gifted member of this House, before they are again 
opened to receive another marked man of our day, one who stood 
out with a singular prominence before his countrymen, challenging, 
by his extraordinary intellectual power, the admiration of his 
fellow-men. 

Daniel Webster, (a name familiar in the remotest cabin upon 
the frontier,) after mixing actively in the councils of his country 
12 



for forty years, and having reached the limits of life assigned to 
mortals, has descended to the mansions of the dead, and the damp 
earth now rests uj^on his manly form. 

That magic voice which was wont to fill this place with admiring 
listeners is hushed in eternal silence. The multitude will no longer 
bend in breathless attention from these galleries to catch his 
words, and to watch the speaking eloquence of his countenance, 
animated by the fervor of his mind. Nor will the Senate again 
be instructed by the outpourings of his profound intellect, matured 
by long experience, and enriched by copious streams from the 
fountains of knowledge. The thi-ead of life is cut, the immortal 
is separated from the mortal, and the products of a great and cul- 
tivated mind are all that remained to us of the jurist and legislator. 

Few men have attracted so large a share of public attention, or 
maintained for so long a period an equal degree of mental distinc- 
tion. In this and the other House there were rivals for fame, and 
he grappled in debate with the master minds of the day, and 
achieved in such manly conflict the imperishable renown connected 
with his name. 

Upon most of the questions which have been much agitated in 
Congress during his period of service his voice was heard. Few 
orators have equalled him in a masterly power of condensation, or 
in that clear logical arrangement of proofs and arguments which 
secures the attention of the hearer, and holds it with unabated 
interest. 

These speeches have been preserved, and many of them will be 
read as forensic models, and will command admiration for the great 
display cf intellectual power and extensive research. This is not 
a suitable occasion to discuss the merits of political productions, 
or to compare them with the effusions of great contemporaneous 
minds, or to speak of the principles advocated. All this belongs 
to the future, and history will assign each great name the measure 
of its enduring fame. 

Mr. Webster was conspicuous not only among the most illus- 
trious men in the halls of legislation, but his fame shone with 
undiminished lustre in the judicial tribunals as an advocate, where 
he participated in many of the most important discussions. On 
the bench was Marshall, Story, and their brethren, men of patient 



ll 



research aud comprehensive scope of intellect, who have left behind 
them in our judicial annals proofs of greatness which will secure 
profound veneration and respect for their names. At the bar stood 
Pinckney, Wirt, Emmett, and many others who adorned aud gave 
exalted character to the professions. Amid these luminaries of the 
bar he discussed many of the great questions raised in giving con- 
struction to organic law, and no one shone with more intense 
brightness, or brought into the conflict of mind more learning, 
higher proofs of severe mental discipline, or more copious illustration. 

Among such men, and in such honorable combat, the founda- 
tion of that critical knowledge of constitutional law, which after- 
wards became a prominent feature of his character, and entered 
largely into his opinions as a legislator, were laid. The arguments 
made at this forum display a careful research into the history of 
the foundation of the Federal Union, and an acute analysis of the 
fundamental provisions of the Constitution. Probably no man has 
penetrated deeper into the principles, or taken a more comprehen- 
sive and complete view of the union of the States, than that great 
man. Chief Justice Marshall. No question was so subtle as to 
elude his grasp, or so complex as to defy his penetration. Even 
the great and the learned esteemed it no condescension to listen to 
the teachings of his voice, and no one profited more by his wisdom 
or more venerated his character than Mr. Webster. 

To stand among such men with marked distinction, as did Mr. 
Webstee, is an association which might satisfy any ambition, what- 
ever might be its aspirations. 

But there^ among those illustrious men, who have finished their 
labors and gone to their final homes, he made his mark strong and 
deep, which will be seen and traced by posterity. 

But I need not dwell on that which is familiar to all readers 
who feel an interest in such topics; nor need I notice the details 
of his private life, since hundreds of pens have been employed in 
revealing all the facts, and in describing, in the most vivid manner, 
all the scenes which have been deemed attractive. Nor need I 
reiterate the fervent language of eulogy which has been poured 
out in aU quarters — ■from the press, the pulpit, the bar, legislative 
bodies, and public assemblies, since his own productions constitute 
his best eulogy. 



I could not, if I were to attempt it, add any thing to the strength 
or beauty of the manifold evidences which have been exhibited of 
the length, the breadth, and height of his fame, nor is there any 
occasion for such proofs in the Senate, the place where his face 
was familiar, where many of his greatest efforts were made, and 
where his intellectual powers were appreciated. 

Here he was seen and heard, and no where else will his claim 
to great distinction be more cheerfully admitted. 

But the places which have known him will know him no more. 
His form will never rise here again, his voice will not be heard, 
nor his expressive countenance seen. He is dead. In his last 
moments he was surrounded by his family and friends at his own 
home, and, while consoled by their presence, his spirit took its 
flight to other regions. All that remained has been committed to 
its kindred earth. 

Divine Providence gives us illustrious men, but they, like others, 
when their mission is ended, yield to the inexorable law of our 
being. He who gives also takes away, but never forsakes his 
faithful children. 

The places of those possessing uncommon gifts are vacated ; the 
sod rests upon the once manly form, now as cold and lifeless as 
itself, and the living are filled with gloom and desolation ; but the 
world rolls on, nature loses none of its charms, the sun rises with 
undiminished splendor, the grass loses none of its freshness, nor do 
the flowers cease to fill the air with fragrance. Natui'e, untouched 
by human wo, proclaims the immutable law of Providence that 
decay follows growth, and that he who takes away never fails 
to give. 

Sir, I propose the following resolutions, believing that they will 
meet the cordial approbation of the Senate : 



Resolved, That tlie Senate has received, with profound sensibility, the annunciation by 
the President, nf the deatli of the late Secretary of State, Daniel Webster, who was long 
a liighly distinguished member of this House. 

Resolved, That the Senate manifest its respect for the memory of tlie deceased, and its 
sympathy witli the bereaved family, by wearing the usual badge of mourning for thirty days. 

Resolved, That these proceedings be communicated to the House of Representatives. 



Mr. BUTLER, of South Carolina, said : 

Mr. President: This is an occasion full of interesting but 
melancholy associations, and one that especially appeals to my 
feelings and sense of justice — I might almost say, historical jus- 
tice — as a Representative of South Carolina. "Who that were 
present can ever forget the moxu-nful and imposing occasion when 
Daxlel "Webster, whose eloquence and ability had given distinc- 
tion to the greatest deliberative assembly, and the most august 
tribunal of justice in this great Confederacy; and when Henry 
Clay, a name associated with aU that is daring in action and 
splendid in eloquence, rose as witnesses before the tribunal of 
history, and gave their testimony as to the character and services 
of their illustrious compeer, John CaldweU Calhoim? They em- 
balmed in historical immortality their rival, associate, and comrade. 

I would that I could borrow from the spirit of my great coimtry- 
man something of its justice and magnanimity, that I might make 
some requital for the distinguished tributes paid to his memory by 
his illustrious compeers. 

Such an occasion as the one I have referred to is without par- 
allel in the history of this Senate; and, su", I fear that there is no 
future for such another one. Calhoun, Clay, and "Webster, like 
Pitt, Fox, and Burke, have made a picture on our history that will 
be looked upon as its culminating splendor. They were luminaries 
that, in many points of view, essentially differed from each other, 
as one star differeth from another; but they were aU stars of the 
first magnitude. Distance cannot destroy, nor can time diminish, 
the simple splendor of their light for the guidance and insti'uction 
of an admiring posterity. 

Rivals they were on a great and eventful theatre of political 
life ; but death has given them a common fame. Their contest in 
life was for the awards of public opinion, the great lever in modern 
times by which nations are to be influenced. 

" Witla more than mortal powers endowed. 
How high they soared above the crowd ! 
Theirs was no common party race. 
Jostling by dark intrigue for place : 
Like fabled gods, their mighty war 
Shook Realms and Nations in its jar!" 



Before I became a member of the Senate, of which I found Mr. 
Webster a distinguished ornament, I nad formed a very high esti- 
mate of his abilities, and from various sources of high authority. 
His mind, remarkable for its large capacity, was enriched with 
rare endowments — with the knowledge of a statesman, the learn- 
ing of a jurist, and the attainments of a scholar. In this Cham- 
ber, with unsurpassed ability, Mr. "Webster has discussed the 
greatest subjects that have or can influence the destinies of this 
great Confederacy. 

Well may I apply to him the striking remark which he bestowed 
on Mr. Calhoun, "We saw before us a Senator of Rome, when 
Eome survived." 

I have always regarded Mr. Webster as a noble model of a 
parliamentary debater. His genial temper ; the courtesy and dig- 
nity of his deportment ; his profound knowledge of his subject, and 
his thorough preparation, gave him a great command, not only 
over his immediate audience, but gave his masterly speeches an 
impressive influence over public opinion. 

In the Supreme Court, Mr. Webster was engaged in the 
greatest cases that were ever decided by that tribunal ; and it is 
not saying too much to assert that his arguments formed the basis 
of some of the ablest judgments of that court. His exuberant but 
rectified imagination and brilliant literary attainments imparted to 
his eloquence beauty, simplicity, and majesty, and the finish of 
taste and elaboration. He seemed to prefer the more debuative 
style of speaking; but when roused and assailed he became a 
formidable adversary in the war of debate, discharging from his 
full quiver the arrows of sarcasm and invective with telling efi"ect. 

Mr. Webster was born in a forest, and in his childhood and 
youth lived amid the scenes of rm-al life ; and it was no doubt 
under their insjiiring influence that he imbibed that love of natm-e 
which has given such a charm and touching pathos to some of his 
meditated productions. It always struck me that he had some- 
thing of Bui'n's nature, but controlled by the discipline of a higher 
degree of education. Lifted above the ordinary level of mankind by 
his genius and various intelligence, Mr. Webster looked upon a 
more extensive horizon than could be seen by those below him. He 
had too much information from his various intercourse with great 



men, and his acquaintauco with the opinions of all ages through 
tho medium of books, to allow the spirit of bigotry to have a place 
in his mind. I have many reasons to conclude that ho was not 
only tolerant of the opinions of others, but was even generous in 
his judgments toward them. I will conclude by saying that New 
England especially, and the Confederacy at large, have cause to be 
proud of the fame of such a man. 

Mr. CASS, of Michigan, said : — 
Mr. President : How are the mighty fallen, was the pathetic 
lamentation, when the leaders of Israel were struck down in the 
midst of their services and of their renown. Well may we repeat 
that national wail, now are the mighty fallen, when the impres- 
sive dispensations of Providence have so recently carried momming 
to the hearts of the American people, by summoning from life to 
death three of their eminent citizens, who, for almost half a cen- 
tury, had taken part, and prominently too, in all the great ques- 
tions, as well of peace as of war, which agitated and divided their 
country. Full they were, indeed, of days and of honors, for 

" The hand of the reaper 
Took the ears that were hoary," 

but never brighter in intellect, purer in patriotism, nor more 
powerful in influence that when the grave closed upon their labors, 
leaving their memory and their career at once an incentive and 
an examp>le for their countrymen, in that long course of trial, but 
I trust of freedom and prosperity also, which is open before us. 
Often divided in life, but only by honest convictions of duty, fol- 
lowed in a spirit of generous emulation, and not of personal oppo- 
sition, they are now united in death, and we may appropriately 
adopt, upon this striking occasion, the beautiful language addressed 
to the people of England by one of her most gifted sons, when 
they were called to mourn, as we are now called, a bereavement 
which spread sorrow, dismay almost, through the nation, and under 
circumstances of difficulty and danger far greater than any we can 
now reasonably anticipate in the progress of our history. 

" Seek not for those a separate doom 
Whom fate made brothers in the tomb ; 
But search the land of living men, 
VVTiere shall we find tlieir like again.'" 



8 



And to-day, in the consideration of the message of the Chief 
Magistrate, it becomes us to respond to his annunciation, com- 
mending itself, as it does, to the universal sentiment of the coun- 
try, of the death of the last of these lamented statesmen, as a na- 
tional misfortune. This mark of regret and respect was due alike 
to the memory of the dead, and to the feelings of the living. And 
I have listened with deep emotion to the eloquent testimonials to 
the mental power and worth and services of the departed patriot 
wliich to-day have been heard in this high place, and will be heard 
to-morrow, and commended too, by the American people. The 
voice of party is hushed in the presence of such a national calam- 
ity, and the grave closes upon the asperity of political contests 
when it closes upon those who have taken part in them. 

And well may we, who have so often witnessed his labors and 
his triumphs, well may we, here, upon this theatre of his services 
aiul his renown, recalling the effort of his mighty understanding, 
and the admii'ation which always followed its exertion well may 
we come with our tribute of acknowledgment to his high and 
diversified powers, and to the influence he exercised upon his audi- 
tory, and in fact upon his country. He was, indeed, one of those 
remarkable men who stand prominently forward upon the canvass 
of history, impressing their characteristics upon the age in which 
they live, and almost making it their own by the force of their 
genius and the splendor of their fame. The time which elapsed 
between the middle of the eighteenth century and oui* own day 
was prolific of great events and of distinguished men, who guided 
or were guided by them far beyond any other equal period in the 
history of human society. But, in my opinion, even this favored 
epoch has produced no man possessing a more massive and gigantic 
intellect, or who exhibited more profound powers of investigation 
in the great department of political science to which he devoted 
himself, in all its various ramifications, than Daniel Webster. 
The structure of his mind seemed peculiarly adapted to the work 
he was called upon to do, and he did it as no other man of his 
country, of his fige indeed, could have done it. And his name 
and his fame are indissolubly connected with some of the most 
difficxdt and important questions which our peculiar institutions 
have called into discussion. It was my good fortune to hear him 



upon one of the most memorable of these occasions, when, in this 
very hall, filled to overflowing with an audience whose rapt atten- 
tion indicated his power and their expectations, he entered into an 
analysis of the Constitution and of the great principles of our po- 
litical organization, with a vigor of argument, a force of illustra- 
tion, and a felicity of diction which have rendered this effort of his 
mind one of the proudest monuments of American genius, and one 
of the noblest expositions which the operations of our Government 
have called forth. I speak of its general effect, without concur- 
ring in all the views he presented, though the points of difference 
neither impair my estimate of the speaker nor of the power he 
displayed in this elaborate debate. 

The judgment of his contemporaries upon the character of his 
eloquence will be confirmed by the future historian. He grasped 
the questions involved in the subject before him with a rare union 
of force and discrimination, and he presented them in an order of 
arrangement marked at once with great perspicuity and with logi- 
cal acuteness, so that when he arrived at his conclusion he seemed 
to reach it by a process of established propositions, interwoven with 
the hand of a master. And topics barren of attraction from their 
nature were rendered interesting by illustrations and allusions 
drawn from a vast store-house of knowledge and applied with a 
chastened taste, formed upon the best models of ancient and of 
modern learning. And to these eminent qualifications was added 
an uninterrupted flow of rich, and often racy, old-fashioned Eng- 
lish, worthy of the earlier masters of the language, whom he 
studied and admired. 

As a statesman and politician, his power was felt and acknow- 
ledged through the republic, and all bore willing testimony to his 
enlarged views, and to his ardent patriotism. And he acquired a 
Eui'opean reputation by the State papers he prepared upon various 
questions of our foreign policy; and one of these, his refutation 
and exposure of an absurd and arrogant pretension of Austria, is 
distinguished by lofty and generous sentiments, becoming the age 
in which he lived, and the great people in whose name he spoke ; 
and it is stamped with a vigor and research not less honorable in 
the exhibition than conclusive in the application. And it will 

ever take rank in the history of diplomatic intercourse among the 
13 



10 



richest contributions to the commentaries upon the public law of 
the world. 

And in internal as in external troubles, he was true, and tried, 
and faithful, and in the latest, may it be the last, as it was the 
most perilous, crisis of our country, rejecting all sectional consid- 
erations, and exposing himself to sectional denunciations, he stood 
up boldly, proudly indeed, and with consummate ability, for the 
constitutional rights of another portion of the Union, fiercely 
assailed by a spirit of aggression as incompatible with our mutual 
obligations as with the duration of the Confederation itself. In 
that dark and doubtful hour his voice was heard above the storm, 
recalling his countrymen to a sense of their dangers and their 
duties, and tempering the lessons of reproof with the experience 
of age and the dictates of patriotism. He who heard this memo- 
rable appeal to the public reason and conscience, made in this 
crowded chamber, with all eyes fixed upon the speaker, and almost 
all hearts swayed by his words of wisdom and of power, will sedu- 
lously guard its recollection as one of those precious incidents 
which, while they constitute the poetry of history, exert a perma- 
nent and decisive influence upon the destiny of nations. 

And our deceased colleague added the kindlier afiiections of the 
heart to the lofty endowments of the mind. And I recall, with 
almost painful sensibility, the associations of our boyhood, when 
we were school-fellows together, with all the troubles and the plea- 
sures which belong to that relation of life in its narrow world of 
preparation. He rendered himself dear by his disposition and de- 
portment, and exhibited some of those peculiar characteristic 
features, which, later in life, made him the ornament of the social 
circle, and, when study and knowledge of the world had ripened 
his faculties, endowed him with powers of conversation I have not 
found surpassed in my intercourse with society, at home or abroad. 
His conduct and bearing at that early period have left an enduring 
impression upon my memory of mental traits which his subsequent 
course in life developed and confii-med. And the commanding 
position and ascendency of the man were foreshadowed by the 
standing and influence of the boy among the comrades who sur- 
rounded him. 



II 

Fifty-five years ago we parted, he to prepare for his splendid 
career in the good old laud of our ancestors, and I to encounter the 
harsh toils and trials of life in the great forest of the West. 

But ere long the report of his words and his deeds penetrated 
those recesses, where human industry was painfully but success- 
fully contending with the obstacles of natui'e, and I found that my 
early companion was assuming a position which confirmed my pre- 
vious anticipations, and which could only be attained by the rare 
faculties with which he was gifted. 

Since then he has gone on, irradiating his path with the splendor 
of his exertions, till the whole hemisphere was bright with his 
glory, and never brighter than when he went down in the west, 
without a cloud to obscure his lustre — clear, calm, and glorious. 
Fortunate in life, he was not less fortunate in death ; for he died 
with his fame undiminished, his faculties unbroken, and his useful- 
ness unimpaired; surrounded by weeping friends, and regarded 
with anxious solicitude by a grateful country, to whom the mes- 
senger, that mocks at time and space, told, from hour to hour, the 
progress of his disorder and the approach of his fate. And beyond 
all this, and better than all this, he died in the faith of a Christian, 
humble but hopeful, adding another to the roll of eminent men 
who have searched the Gospel of Jesus, and found it the word and 
the will of Grod, given to dii-ect us while here, and to sustain us in 
that hour of trial when the things of this world are passing away, 
and the dark valley of the shadow of death is opening before us. 

How ARE THE MIGHTY FALLEN, WO may yet exclaim, when reft 
of om* greatest and wisest ; but they fall to rise again from death 
to life, when such quickening faith in the mercy of God, and in 
the sacrifice of the Redeemer, comes to shed upon them its happy 
influence on this side of the grave and beyond it. 

Mr. SEWARD, of New York, said : — 
When, in passing through Savoy, I reached the eminence where 
the traveller is promised his first distinct view of Mont Blanc, I 
asked, "Where is the Mountain ?" " There," said the guide, point- 
ing to the rainy sky which stretched out before me. It is even so 
when we approach and attempt to scan accurately a great character. 
Clouds gather upon it, and seem to take it up out of our sight. 



12 

Daniel Webster was a man of -warm and earnest afFertioDs, in 
all the domestic and social relations. Purely incidental and 
natural allusions in his conversations, letters, and speeches, have 
made us familiar with the very pathways about bis early mountain 
home; with his mother^ graceful, intellectual, fond, and pious; 
with his father, assiduous, patriotic, and religious — changing his 
pursuits, as duty in revolutionary times commanded, from the farm 
to the camp, and from the camp to the Provincial Legislature and 
the Constituent Assembly. It seems as if we could recognise the 
very form and features of the most constant and generous of 
brothers. Nor are we strangers at Marshfield. We are guests 
hospitably admitted, and then left to wander at our ease under the 
evergreens on the lawn, over the grassy fields, through the dark 
native forest, and along the sea shore. We know, almost as well 
as we know our own, the children i-eared there, and fondly loved, 
and therefore perhaps early lost ; the servants bought from bond- 
age, and held by the stronger chains of gratitude; the careful 
steward, always active yet never hurried ; the reverent neighbor, 
always welcome yet never obtrusive ; and the ancient fisherman, 
whose little fleet is ever ready for the sports of the sea ; and we 
meet on every side the watchfiU and devoted friends whom no 
frequency of disappointment can discourage, and whom even the 
death of their great patron cannot all at once disengage from 
efforts which know no balancing of probabilities, nor reckoning of 
cost to secure his elevation to the first honors of the Republic. 

Who that was even confessedly provincial was ever so identified 
with any thing local as Daniel Webster was with the spindles 
of Lowell and the quarries of Quincy ; with Faneuil Hall, Bunker 
Hill, Forefathers' Day, Plymouth Rock, and whatever else belonged 
to Massachusetts ? And yet, who that was most truly national has 
ever so sublimely celebrated, or so touchingly commended to our 
reverent affection, our broad and ever-broadening continental home ; 
its endless rivers, majestic mountains, and capacious lakes; its 
inimitable and indescribable Constitution ; its cherished and grow- 
ing capital; its aptly-conceived and expressive flag, and its 
triumphs by land and sea; and its immortal founders, heroes, and 
martyrs ! How manifest it was, too, that, unlike those who are 
impatient of slow but sure progress, he loved his country, not for 



18 

sometlimg greater or hlglier that lie desired or hoped she might be, 
but just for what she was, and as she was ah-eady, regardless of 
future change. 

No, sir; believe me, they err widely who say that Daniel 
Webstei; was cold and passionless. It is true that he had little 
enthusiasm, but he was nevertheless earnest and sincere, as well as 
calm ; and therefore he was both discriminating and comprehensive 
in his aflfections. We recognise his likeness in the portrait drawn 
by a Homan pencil — 

" Whe with nice <Iiscernmeat knows 
What to his country and his friends he owes ; 
How various Nature warms the luinian breast, 
To love tlie parent, brother, friend, or guest,; 
What the great otiices of judges are, 
Of senators, of generals soit to war." 




Daniel Webstek was cheerful, and, on becoming occasions, 
joyous, and even mirthful; but he was habitually engaged in pro- 
found studies on great aiFairs. He was, moreover, constitutionally 
fearful of the dangers of popular passion and prejudice ; and so, in 
public walk, conversation, and debate, he was grave and serious, 
even to solemnity ; yet he never desponded in the darkest hours 
of personal or political trial; and melancholy never, in health nor 
even in sickness, spread a pall over his spirits. 

It must have been very early that he acquired that just estimate 
of his own powers, which was the basis of a self-reliance which all 
the world saw and approved, and which, while it betrayed no 
feature of vanity, none but a superficial observer could have mis- 
taken for pride or arrogance. 

Daniel Webster was no sophist. With a talent for didactic 
instruction, which might have excused dogmatism, he never lec- 
tured on the questions of moi-als that are agitated in the schools; 
but he seemed, nevertheless, to have acquired a philosophy of his 
own, and to have made it the rale and guide of his life. That 
phi'iosophy consisted in improving his powers and his tastes, so 
that he might appreciate whatever was good and beautiful in nature 
and art, and attain to whatever was excellent in conduct. lie had 
accurate perceptions of the cjualities and relations of things. He 
overvalued nothing that was common, and undervalued nothing 



14 



that was useful or even ornamental. His lands, his cattle, and 
equipage, his dwelling, library, and apparel ; his letters, arguments, 
and orations ; every thing that he had, every thing that he made, 
and every thing that he did, was, as far as possible, fit, complete, 
perfect. He thought decorous forms necessary for preserving what- 
ever was substantial or valuable in politics and morals, and even 
in religion. In his regard. Order was the first law, and Peace the 
chief blessing of earth, as they are of Heaven. Therefore while 
he desired Justice and loved Liberty, he reverenced Law as the 
first divinity of States and of society. 

Daniel Webster was indeed ambitious, but his ambition was 
generally subordinate to conventional forms, and always to the 
Constitution. He aspired to place and preferment, but not for the 
mere exercise of political power, and still less for pleasurable 
indulgeneies ; and only for occasions to save or serve his country, 
and for the fame which such noble actions might bring. Who 
will censm'e such ambition? Who had greater genius, subjected 
to severer discipline ? What other motives than those of ambition 
could have brought that genius into activity under that discipline, 
and sustained that activity so equally under ever-changing circum- 
stances so long ? His ambition never feU ofi" into presumption. 
He was, on the contrary, content with performing all practical 
duties, even in common afi"airs, in the best possible manner; and 
he never chafed under petty restraints from those above, nor 
malicious annoyances from those around him. If ever any man 
had intellectual superiority which could have excused a want of 
deference due to human authority, or skepticism concerning that 
which was divine, he was such a one. Yet he was, nevertheless, 
unassuming and courteous, here and elsewhere, in the public 
councils ; and there was, I think, never a time in his life when he 
was not an unquestioning believer in that religion which ofiers to 
the meek the inheritance of the Heavenly Kingdom. 

Daniel Webster's mind was not subtle, but it was clear. It 
was surpassingly logical in the exercise of induction, and equally 
vigorous and energetic in all its movements; and yet he possessed 
an imagination so strong, that if it had been combined with even 
a moderated enthusiasm of temper, would have overtm-ned the 
excellent balance of his powers. 



15 

Tke civilian rises in this, as in other E.epuhlics, by the practice 
of eloquence ; and so Daniel Webster became an orator, the first 
of orators. 

Whatever else concerning him has been controverted by any 
body, the fifty thousand lawyers of the United States, interested 
to deny his pretensions, conceded to him an unapproachable supre- 
macy at the bar. How did he win that high place ? Where others 
studied laboriously, he meditated intensely. Where others appealed 
to the prejudices and passions of courts and juries, he addressed 
only their underetandings. Where others lost themselves among 
the streams, he ascended to the fountain. While they sought the 
rules of law among conflicting precedents, he found them in the 
eternal principles of reason and justice. 

But it is conceding too much to the legal profession to call 
Daniel Webster a lawyer. Lawyers speak for clients and their 
interests; he seemed always to be speaking for his country and 
for truth. So he rose imperceptibly above his profession; and 
while yet in the Forum, he stood before the world a Publicist. In 
this felicity he resembled while he surpassed Erskine, who taught 
the courts at Westminster the law of moral responsibility ; and he 
approached Hamilton, who educatecl the courts at Washington in 
the Constitution of their country and the philosophy of (govern- 
ment. 

An undistinguishable line divides this high province of the 
Forum from the Senate, to which his philosophy and eloquence 
were perfectly adapted. Here, in times of stormy agitation and 
bewildering excitement, when as yet the Union of these States 
seemed not to have been cemented and consolidated, and its disso- 
lution seemed to hang, if not on the immediate result of the debate, 
at least upon the popular passion that that result must generate, 
Daniel Webster put forth his mightiest efforts, confessedly the 
greatest ever put forth here or on this continent. Those efibrts pro- 
duced marked efiect on the Senate ; they soothed the public mind, 
and became enduring lessons of instruction to our countrymen on 
the science of constitutional law, and the relative powers and 
responsibilities of the Government, and the rights and duties of 
the States and of citizens. 



16 



Tried by ancient definitions, Daneel Webster was not an orator. 
He studied no art, and practiced no action. Nor did he form him- 
self by any admitted model. He had neither the directness and 
vehemence of Demosthenes, nor the fulness and flow of Cicero, nor 
the intenseness of Milton, nor the magnificence of Burke. It was 
happy for him that he had not. The temper and tastes of his 
age and country required eloquence difierent from all these, and 
they found it in the pure logic, and the vigorous yet massive 
rhetoric which constituted the style of Daniel Webster. 

Daniel Webster, although a statesman, did not aim to be either 
a popular or a parliamentary leader. He left common affairs and 
questions to others, and reserved himself for those great and infre- 
quent occasions which seemed to involve the prosperity or the 
continuance of the Republic. On these occasions he rose above 
partisan influences and alliances, and gave his counsels earnestly 
and with impassioned solemnity, and always with an unaff"ected 
reliance upon the intelligence and virtue of his countrj-men. 

The first revolutionary assembly that convened in Boston pro- 
mulgated the principles of the Revolution of 1688, " Resistance to 
unjust laws is obedience to God," and it became the watchword 
throughout the colonies. Under that motto the Colonies dismem- 
bered the British Empire, and erected the American Republic. 
At an early day it seemed to Daniel Webster that the habitual 
cherishing of that principle, after its great work had been consum- 
mated, threatened to subvert in its turn the free and beneficent 
Constitution, which afforded the highest attainable security against 
the passage of unjust laws. He addressed himself, therefore, 
assiduously and almost alone to what seemed to him the duty of 
calling the American people back from Revolutionary theories to 
the formation of habits of peace, order, and submission to authority. 
He inculcated the duty of submission by States and citizens to all 
laws passed within the province of constitutional authority, and of 
absolute reliance on constitutional remedies for the correction of 
all errors and the redress of all injustice. This was the political 
gospel of Daniel Webster. He preached it in season and out of 
season, boldly, constantly, with the zeal of an apostle, and with the 
devotion, if there were need, of a martyr. It was full of saving 



17 

influences while he lived, and those influences will last so long as 
the Constitution and the Union shall endure. ' 

I do not dwell on Daniel Webster's exercise of administrative 
functions. It was marked by the same ability that distinguished 
all his achievements in other fields of duty. It was at the same 
time eminently conservative of peace, and of the great principles of 
constitutional liberty upon which the republican institutions of his 
country were founded. But, while those administrative services 
benefited his country and increased his fame, we all felt, never- 
theless, that his proper and highest place was here, where there 
was field and scope for his philoso|)hy and eloquence ; here, among 
the equal Representatives of the constituent States, which were at 
once to be held together, and to be moved on in the establishment 
of a continental power, controlling all the American States, and 
balancing those of the Eastern world, and we could not but ex- 
claim, in the words of the Roman orator, when we saw him leave 
the Legislative Councils to enter on the office of administration : 
^' Quantis in angustiisj vestra gloria se dilatari velis !" 



Mr. STOCKTON, of New Jersey, said: — 

Mr. President : I came to this city only this morning, and to 
the Senate chamber wholly unapprized in relation to the present 
solemn and interesting proceedings. It would therefore not be- 
come me, or the solemnity and grandeur of the occasion, to min- 
gle, so entirely unprepared as I needs must be, my voice with the 
eloquent voice of lamentation which has this morning done honor 
to the Senate, for any other purpose than simply and briefly to 
express my grief, my sorrow — ay, sir, my heartfelt, pervading 
sorrow — when I heard that Daniel Webster was dead. 

Senators, I have known and loved Daniel Webster for thirty 
years. What wonder, then, I should sorrow ? But now that I 
am on my feet, and the Senate who knew and loved him too are 
my listeners, how am I to express that sorrow ? I cannot do it ; 
it cannot be done ; our language is too poor. 0, sir, all words, in 
moments like these, when grief or love is to be expressed, are cold 
and frigid. Senators, I, can, even now hardly realize the sad event 
that Daniel Webster is really dead; that he does not '■' still live." 
I did hope that God, who has watched over this Republic, who 



18 



can do all things, who hung the earth upon nothing, who so en- 
dowed the mind of Daniel Webster, would have still longer up- 
held its frail tenement, and kept him as an example not only to 
our own men, but to the men of the whole world. Indeed, it is 
no figure of speech when we say that his fame was "world wide." 

But, Senators, I rise to pronounce no eulogy on him. I am up 
for no such vain purpose. I come with no ceremony ; but I come 
to the portals of his grave stricken with sadness ; and here, before 
the assembled Senate — aye, sir, in the presence of friends as well 
as Senators, because, whether they be of this side of the chamber 
or the other side of the chamber, I hope I am entitled to call every 
Senator my friend — to mingle my grief with the grief of those 
around me. I rise here with no hope of adding one gravel-stone 
to the colossal column he has erected for himself; but I come only 
to hang a garland of friendship on the bier of one of the greatest 
and best men I ever knew. 

Senators, you have known Mr. "Webster in his public character, 
as a statesman of almost intuitive perceptions, as a lawyer of un- 
surpassed learning and ability, as a ripe and general scholar. But 
it was my happiness to know him as a man in the seclusion of 
private life, and in the performance of sacred domestic duties, and 
of reciprocal friendship. I say here in this presence, and as far as 
my poor voice may reach, that he was remarkable for all those 
attributes that constitute a noble, a generous, hospitable, high- 
minded, courageous man. Sir, as far as my researches into the 
history of the world have gone, they have failed to furnish his 
superior ; not even on the records of ancient Greece, or Rome, or 
any other nation is to be found a man of superior endowments to 
our own Webster. 

Mr. President, in private life Mr. Webster was generous to a 
fault. In public life his whole mind was absorbed in his " coun- 
try, his whole country, and nothing but his country." Sir, one 
act of his, one speech of his, made in this chamber, has placed him 
before all men of antiquity. He offered himself — yes, you all 
remember — in that scat there he rose and offered himself a living 
sacrifice for his country ; and Lord Bacon said that he who offers 
himself as a sacrifice for his country is a sight for the angels to 
look upon. 



19 

Mr. President,, my feelings upon this occasion ■will not surprise 
Senators who remember that these are no new sentiments for me ; 
that when he was living I had the temerity to say that Daniel 
Webster was the greatest amongst men and a true patriot; aye, 
sir, and when it was supposed that it interfered with my political 
aspirations. "Well, sir, if an empire had been then hanging on 
my words, I would not have amended or altered one sentiment. 

Having said thus much of the dead, allow me to express one 
single word of thanks to the honorable Senator from Michigan 
(Mr. Cass.) Sir, I have often had occasion to feel sentiments of 
regard, and, if he will permit me to say it, of affectionate regard 
for him, and sometimes to express them ; but the emotions created 
in my heart by his address this morning are not easily expressed. 
I thank him, in the fulness of my heart I thank him, and may 
God spare him to our country many years ; may he long remain 
here in our midst, as he is at this day, in all the strength of man- 
hood, and in all the glory of matured wisdom. 

The resolutions oflFered by Mr. Davis, were then unanimously 
adopted. 



PtlOCEEDINGS 



IN THE 



HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 



IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

Washington, December lb, 1852. 

A message was received from the Senate, by the hands of Asburt 
DiCKiNS, Esq., its Seci'etary, communicating to the House its pro- 
ceedings on the death of the late Secretary of State, the Hon, 
Daniel Webster. 

The proceedings ha^^ng been read — 

Mr. G. T. DAVIS, of Massachusetts, rose and addressed the House as 
follows: — 

Mr. Speaker : I rise for the purpose of proposing some action 
of this House in response to that which, we learn, has taken place 
in the Senate in reference to the death of Mr. Webster; and I 
have little to add to the proposition itself, beyond a brief expres- 
sion of reverence and of affectionate recollection. At this seat of 
Government, where thirty years of Mr. Webster's life were spent 
— in this Capitol, still populous with the echoes of his voice — to 
this House, of which there is not an individual member but can 
trace something of his intellectual wealth, or political faith, to the 
fountain of that mighty intellect — it would be useless, and worse, 
to pass in review the various acts of spoken and written thought 
by which he impressed himself ineffaceably upon his time. Master 
of the great original ideas of which our social institutions are but 
the coarse material expression ; master of a style which clothed each 
glorious thought in a garb of appropriate beauty ; possessed of a 

conquering nature, that " like the west wind brought the sunshine 

21 



22 

with it," and gave us, wherever he was, the sense of security and 
power, he has run his appropriate race, and has left us to feel that 
our day of life will henceforth be more wintry now that that light 
has been withdrawn. I have no intention of undertaking here to 
measure his labors or interpret his ideas. But I feel tempted to 
say that his great field of action— the greatest which any states- 
man can have- — was in undertaking to apply general principles to 
an artificial and complicated system ; to reconcile liberty with law ; 
to work out the advance of liberty and civilization through, and 
under, the rules of law and government; to solve that greatest 
problem of human government, how much of the ideal may safely 
be let into the practical. 

He sought these objects, and he sought the political power which 
would enable him to carry out these objects, and he threw into the 
straggle the great passions of a great nature-— the quod vult, id 
vcdde vide of the elder Brutus. He sought, and not unsuccessfully, 
to throw around the cold impersonal idea of a Constitution the 
halo of love and reverence which in the old world gathers round 
the dynasties of a thousand years; for, in the attachment thus 
created, he thought he saw the means of safety and permanence 
for his country. His large experience, and broad forecast, gave 
him notice of national dangers which all did not see, as the wires 
of the electric telegraph convey news of startling import unknown 
to the slumbering villages through which they pass. Whether his 
fears were well or ill-founded, the future, the best guardian of his 
fame, will show; but whether well or ill-founded, matters nothing 
to him. He has passed through that last and severest trial, which 
he has himself, in anticipation, described in words never to be for- 
gotten : " One may live (said he) as a conqueror, a hero, or a 
magistrate, but he must die as a man. The bed of death brings 
every human being to his pure individuality; to the intense con- 
templation of the deepest and most solemn of all relations— the 
relation between the creature and his Creator. Here it is that 
fame and renown cannot assist us ; that all external things must 
fail to aid us ; that even friends, aflFection, and human love, and 
devotedness cannot succor ub. This relation, the true foundation 
of all duty, a relation perceived and felt by conscience, and con- 
firmed by revelation, our illustrious friend, now deceased, always 



"■ ^ Ti i v 9^m r ^ 



25 

acknowledged. He reverenced the Scriptures of Truth, honored 
the pure morality which they teach, and clung to the hopes of 
futm-e life which they impart." 

Mr. Webster died in accordance with the prevailing sentiment 
of his life, in the spirit of prayer to God, and of love to man. 
Well might those who watched his dying bed say, in the words 
which the greatest English poet applies to a legendary hero who 
also had been the stay of his country in peril — 

" Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail 
Or knock the breast ; no weakness, no contempt, 
Dispraise or blame : nothing but well or fair, 
And what may comfort us in a death so noble." 

Mr. Speaker, I move the following resolves: — 

Resolved, That this House concurs with the Senate in its expression of grief for the 
death of Daniel Webster, of respect for lus memory, and of estimation of the services 
which he rendered to Iiis country. 

Resolved, That the members of this House will wear crape on the left arm for the space 
of thirty days. 

Resolved, That the Speaker be requested to make these resolves known to the surviving 
relatives of the deceased. 

Resolved, That this House do now adjourn. 

Mr. APPLETON, of Maine, said: — 
Mr. Speaker, I do not know that I ought to add any thing to 
what has already been said upon the resolutions before us ; yet, 
since the death of Mr. Webster was a national calamity, it is fit 
that all classes and all parties in the community should unite to 
testify their full appreciation of it. The people themselves have 
admonished us of this, as they have gathered recently with mourn- 
ful reverence around his tomb, and we should be unworthy of 
them, if, here in the Capitol, where he won so much of his fame, 
we did not add our tribute to his memory. It is a great memory, 
sir, and will go down to posterity, as one of the country's heir- 
looms, through I know not how many successive generations. We 
are not here, Mr. Speaker, to build his monument. He erected 
that for himself before he died ; and had he failed to do so, none 
among us could supply the deficiency. We are here rather to 
recognise his labors, and to inscribe the marble with his name. 



24 

That we have not all sympathized with him in his political doc- 
trines, or been ready to sanction every transaction of his public 
life, need not, and I am sure does not, abate any thing from our 
respect for his services or our regret for his loss. His character 
and his works — what he was and what he did — constitute a leg- 
acy which no sound-hearted American can contemplate without 
emotions of gratitude and pride. There is enough of Daniel 
Webster, sir, to furnish a common ground upon which all his 
countrymen can mingle their hearty tributes to his memory. 

He was a man to be remarked any where. Among a harharoits 
people he would have excited reverence by his very look and 
mien. No one could stand before him without knowing that he 
stood in a majestic presence, and admiring those lineaments of 
greatness with which his Creator had enstamped, in a manner not 
to be mistaken, his outward form. If there was ever such an in- 
stance on earth, his was the appearance described by the great 
dramatist : 

" The combination and the form indeed 
Wliere every god did seem to set his seal, 
To give the world assurance of a man." 

No one could listen to him, in his happier moments, without feel- 
ing his spirit stirred within him by those deep cathedral tones 
which were the fit vehicles of his grave and earnest thoughts. No 
one can read his writings without being struck by the wonderful 
manner in which they unite a severe simplicity of style with great 
warmth of fancy and great affluence of diction. 

We, Mr. Speaker, remember his looks and his spoken words ; 
but by those who are to come after us he will be chiefly known 
through that written eloquence which is gathered in our public 
records, and enshrined among the pages of his published works. 
By these, at least, he stiU lives, and by these, in my judgment, he 
will continue to live after these pillars shall have fallen and this 
Capitol shall have crumbled into ruin. Demosthenes has survived 
the Parthenon, and TuUy still pleads before the world the cause 
of Roman culture and Roman oratory ; but there is nothing, it 
seems to me, either in TuUy or in Demosthenes which, for con- 
ception, or language, or elevation of sentiment, can exceed some 
passages in the writings which remain of Daniel Webster, His 



I 



25 

fame indeed is secure, for it is guarded by his own works ; and, 
as lie himself said of Mr. Calhoun, " he has lived long enough, he 
has done enough, and he has done it so well, so successfully, so 
honorably, as to connect himself for all time with the records of 
his country." 

In no respect, Mr. Speakeb, is this an occasion of lamentation 
for Jiim. Death was not meant to be regarded as an evil, or else 
it would not come alike to all ; and about Mr. Webstek's death 
there were many circumstances of felicity and good fortune. He 
died in the maturity of his intellect ; after long public service, and 
after having achieved a groat name for himself, and a great 
memory for his country. He died at home ; his last wants sup- 
plied by the hands of affection ; his last hours cheered by the con- 
solations of friendshi|) ; amidst those peaceful scenes which he had 
himself assisted to make beautiful, and within hearing of that 
ocean-anthem to which he always listened with emotions of grati- 
tude and joy. He died, too, conscious of the wonderful growth 
and prospei'ity and glory of his native land. His eloquent prayer 
had been answered — the prayer which he breathed forth to Provi- 
dence at the greatest era of his life, when he stood side by side 
with Andrew Jackson, and they both contended for what was, in 
their belief, the cause of the Constitution and the Union. I pause, 
Mr. Speaker, at the combination of those two names. Andrew 
Jackson and Daniel Webster! Daniel Webster and Andrew 
Jackson ! With the clear intellect and glorious oratory of the one, 
added to the intuitive sagacity and fate-like will of the other, 1 
will not ask what lorong is there which they could not successfully 
crush, but what right is there, rather, which could withstand their 
united power. 

"When my eyes," he said on that great occasion, "are turned 
to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him 
shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once-glori- 
ous Union ; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent ; on a land 
rent with civil feuds or drenched, it may be, with fraternal blood. 
Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gor- 
geous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout 
the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming 

in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single 
14 



26 



star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interroga- 
tory as 'What is all this worth?' — nor those other words of delu- 
sion and folly, 'Liberty first and Union afterwards' — but every- 
where, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all 
its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and 
in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear 
to every American heart, 'Liberty and Union, now and foi-ever, 
one and inseparable." 

Sir, Mr. Webstee outlived the crisis of 1830, and saw his coun- 
try emerge in safety, also, from that later tempest of sectional dis- 
turbance, whose waters are even yet heaving with the swell of 
subdued but not exhausted passion. He left this nation great, 
prosperous, and happy; and, more than that, he left the Constitu- 
tion and the Union in vigorous existence, under whose genial 
influences all that glory, and prosperity, and happiness, he knew, 
had been achieved. To preserve them, he had risked what few 
men have to risk — his reputation, his good name, his cherished 
friendships ; and if there be any who doubt the wisdom of his 7th 
of March speech, let them consider the value of these treasures, 
and they will at least give him credit for patriotism and sincerity. 
But I am unwilling, Mr. Speaker, to dwell upon this portion of 
his career. The fires of that crisis have subsided ; but their ashes 
are yet warm with recent strife. What Mr. Webster did, and 
the other great men with whom he labored, to extinguish those 
fires, has gone into the keeping of history, and they have found 
their best reward in the continued safety of the Republic. 

Our anxiety need not be for them. When the mariner is out 
upon the ocean, and sees, one by one, the lights of heaven go out 
before the rising storm, he docs not ask what has become of those 
lights, or whether they shall renew their lustre, but his inquiry is, 
what is to become of me, and how am I to guide my bark in safe- 
ty, after these natural pilots of the sky have disappeared ? Yet, 
even then, by consulting those calculations and directions, which 
wise and skilful men had prepared, when the light did shine, and 
there was no tempest raging upon the sea, he is enabled, it may 
be, to grope his way in safety to his desired port. And this, sir 
is our consolation, upon occasions like the present one. Jackson, 
and Calhoun, and Clay, and Wright, and Polk, and Woodbury, 



27 

and Webster, are indeed no more ; and if all that ttey thougtt, 
and said, and did — tlieir wise conceptions, and their heroic deeds, 
and their bright examples, were buried tcith them, how terribly 
deepened would now be our sense of the nation's loss, and how 
much less hopeftd the prospects of republican liberty. But it is 
not so. 

" A superior and commanding human intellect," (Mr. Webster 
has himself told us,) " a truly great man, when Heaven vouchsafes 
so rare a gift, is not a temporary flame, burning brightly for 
awhile, and then giving place to returning darkness. It is rather 
a spark of fervent heat, as well as radiant light, with power to 
enkindle the common mass of human mind ; so that when it glim- 
mers in its own decay, and finally goes out in death, no night 
follows, but it leaves the world all light, all on fire, from the potent 
contact of its own spirit." 

Our great men do not wholly die. All that they achieved 
worthy of remembrance survives them. They live in their record- 
ed actions ; they live in their bright examples ; they live in the 
respect and gratitude of mankind ; and they live in that peculiar 
influence, by which one single commanding thought, as it runs 
along the electric chain of human aflfairs, sets in motion stiU other 
thoughts and influences, in endless progression ; and thus makes its 
author an active and powerful agent in the events of life, long 
after his mortal portion shall have crumbled in the tomb. 

Let us thank God for this immortality of worth, and rejoice in 
every example which is given to us of what our nature is capable 
of accomplishing. Let it teach us not despair but courage, and 
lead us to follow in its light, at however great a distance and with 
however unequal steps. This is the lesson of wisdom, as well as 
of poetry. 

" Lives of great men all remind us 
We can make our livea sublime ; 
And departing, leave behind us 
Footprints on the sands of Time. 

Footprints, that perhaps another. 

Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, 

Seeing, may tsJce heart again." 



28 

When God shall send his Angel to its, Mr. Speaker, bearing 
the scroll of death, may we be able to bow our heads to his mis- 
sion, with as much of gentleness and resignation as marked the 
last hours of Da-niel "Webster. 



Mr. PRESTON, of Kentucky, said : — 
Mr. Speaker : I have been requested by some of the gentlemen 
who comiwse the delegation from my State to make some remarks 
upon the subject of the message and resolutions received from the 
Senate, which have been laid upon your table this morning, in 
relation to the death of Mr. Webster. It was, in their opinion, 
peculiarly appropriate that Kentucky — a State so long associated 
with Massachusetts in political sympathy, as well in reciprocal 
admiration entertained for two of the most eminent men of their 
day — should come forward and add her testimonial to the esteem 
in which she held his life and great public services, and the regret 
she experienced at the calamity which has befallen the country. 
The mind naturally goes back, in looking over the great career of 
Daniel Webster, to the period of his birth_, seventy years ago. 
In the northern part of the State of New Hampshire, amid its 
mountain scenery, and beneath the roof of his pioneer father, the 
future statesman first drew the breath of life, and imbibed, amid 
that wild scenery and those mountains, that freedom of thought, 
that dignity, and that intellectual health, which left so indelible a 
mark upon his oratory and public career in after life. No man 
has earned a greater reputation, in the present time, in forensic 
endeavor, than Mr. Webster, nor any whose reputation could chal- 
lenge comparison, unless it be one who was also born in a similar 
obscure station of life, amid the marshes of Hanover, and whose 
future led him to cross the summit of the Appalachian range with 
the great tide of population which poured from Yirginia upon the 
fertile plains of Kentucky. Their destiny has been useful, great, 
and brilliant. From that period to this, these celebrated contem- 
poraries have been conspicuous in the career of public utility 
to which they devoted their lives, and by their dignified states- 
manship have commanded not only the respect of their several 
States, but of the nation and of mankind. For forty years they 
swayed the councils of their country, and the same year sees them 



B" 



29 



consigned to the grave. The statesman of Ashland died in this 
city, before the foliage of summer was sere, and was sent, with the 
honors of his country, back to the resting-place which he now 
occupies in the home of his early adoption. The winds of autumn 
beat upon the stern New England shores — the shores of Plymouth, 
where the Pilgrim Fathers landed — and caught up the expiring 
breath of Daxiel Webster as he terminated his life of honorable 
service. The dirge that the night Avinds now utter through the 
primeval forests of Ashland lament for one; the surges of the 
wintry ocean, as they Ibeat upon the shores of Marshfield, are a 
fitting requiem to the other. 

There are two points of particular prominence in the life of 
"Webster to which I will allude. All remember the celebrated 
struggle of 1830. The greatest minds of the country, seeing the 
constitutional questions involved from different points of view, were 
embroiled in controversy. The darkest apprehensions were enter- 
tained. A gallant and gifted Senator from South Carolina, with a 
genius and fii-e characteristic of the land of his birth, had expressed 
the views of his party with great ability, and, as it was thought, 
with irresistible eloquence. The eyes of the country were directed 
to "Webster as the champion of the Constitution and the Union. 
Crowds of beautiful women and anxious men on that day thronged 
the other wing of the Capitol. What patriotic heart in the nation 
has yet forgotten that noble and memorable reply ? A deep and 
enthusiastic sentiment of admiration and respect thrilled through 
the heart of the people, and even yet the triumph of that son of 
New England is consecrated in the memory of his countrymen. 
Subsequently the Chief Magistrate of the Union, President Jack- 
son, announced opinions of a similar character in his celebrated 
Proclamation, and men of all parties felt that a new rampart had 
been erected for the defence of the Constitution. 

At a period more recent, within the remembrance of all, Daniel, 
Webster again appeared in another critical emergency that im- 
perilled the safety of the Republic. It was the 7th of March, 1850, 
Excited by the Territorial question, the spirit of fanaticism broke 
forth with fearful violence from the North. But it did not shake 
his undaunted soul. He gazed with majestic serenity at the storm, 



30 

and sublime in his self-reliance, as Virgil describes Mezentius, 
surrounded by his enemies — 

" He, like a solid rock by seas enclosed, 
To raging winds and roaring waves exposed, 
From bis proud summit looking down, disdains 
Their empty clamor, and unmoved remains." 

A great portion of the fame of Daniel Webster rests upon the 
events of that day, and, his patriotism having endured the tempest, 
his reputation shone with fresh lustre after it had passed. Clay 
and Webster on that day stood linked hand-in-hand, and averted 
the perils that menaced their common country. In the last great 
act of their lives in the Senate, they drew closer the bonds of 
Union between the North and South, like those lofty Cordilleras 
that, stretching along the Isthmus of Panama, bind in indissolu- 
ble bonds Northern and Southern America, and alike beat back 
from theu' rocky sides the fury of either ocean. These, Mr. 
Speaker, and gentlemen of the House, are the memories that make 
us in our Western homes reverence the names of Clay and 
Webster. 

The gentleman from Massachusetts, (Mr. Davis,) in his eloquent 
tribute to the genius and fame of Daniel Webster, has chosen to 
apply to him the remark by which Cicero characterizes Brutus — 
" Quid quid vult, valde, vidt^ If he will pardon me, T think the 
description applied by the great orator, whom he has quoted, to 
Gracchus is more striking: " Uloquentia quidem nescio an Jiabuis- 
set parem : grandis est verbis, sapiens sententiiSj genere toto gravis^ 
If, however, a resemblance prevailed in this respect between Caius 
Gracchus and Webster, it did not in others. Gracchus, as we are 
told, was the first Eoman orator who turned his back to the Capitol 
and his face to the people ; the popular orators of Home, anterior 
to that time, having always turned their faces to the Senate and 
their backs to the Forum. Webster never sought to subvert the 
judgment of the people by inflaming their passions. His sphere 
was among men of intellect. His power was in convincing the 
minds of the cultivated and intellectual, rather than by fervid 
harangues to sway the ignorant or excite the multitude. Clay — 
bold, brilliant, and splendid, rushing at results witih that intuition 



31 

of common sense that outstrips all the processes of logic — always 
commanded the heart and directed the action of his party. Web- 
ETER seemed deficient in some of these great qualities, as he sur- 
passed him in others. He appeared his natural auxiliary. Clay, 
the most brilliant parliamentary leader, and probably unequalled, 
save by the Earl of Chatham, whom he resembled, swept with the 
velocity of a charge of cavalry on the ranks of his opponents, and 
often won the victory before others were prepared for the encounter. 
"Webster, with his array of facts, his power of statement, and 
logical deductions, moved forward like ifes disciplined and serried 
infantry, with the measured tread of deliberate resolution and 
irresistible power. 

Daniel Webster is dead. He died without ever having been 
elevated to the Presidency of the nation. Camillus, the second 
founder of Rome, never enjoyed the consulate, but he was not less 
illustrious because he was not rewarded by the fasces and the Con- 
sular purple. Before the lustre of Webster's renown a merely 
Presidential reputation must grow pale. He has not only left a 
reputation of unsurpassed splendor in the Senate, but he will also 
pass down to posterity as the ablest and most profound jurist of 
his day. As an orator he had not, as has been correctly observed 
by a Senator from New York, the vehemence of Demosthenes, nor 
the splendor of Cicero, but still Daniel Webster was an orator — 
an orator marked by the characteristics of the Teutonic race — 
bold, massive, and replete with manly force and vigor. His writings 
are marked by a deep jihilosophy, which will cause them to be read 
when the issues that evoked them have passed away, and the splen- 
dor of an imagination, almost as rich as that of Burke, will invest 
them with attractions alike for the student and the man of letters. 

Wo should not deplore the death of Webster. It is true the 
star has shot from the sphere it illuminated, and is lost in the 
gloom of death, but he sank full of years and of honors, after he 
had reached the verge of human life, and before his majestic intel- 
lect was dimmed, or his body bowed down by old age. He did 
not sink into his grave like Marlborough, amid the mists of 
dotage, but he went while his intellect was unclouded, and the 
literary remembrances of his youth came thronging to the dying 
bed of their votary. Napoleon, when he was expiring at St. 



1 



32 

Helena, muttered disconnected words of command and battle, that 
showed his turbulent character still struggled in imaginary con- 
flicts : but gentler sjDirits brought to the deathbed of the statesman 
of Marshfield more consoling memories as he murmured, 

" The curfew tolls the knell of parting day :" 

and all the tender and mournful beauties of that inimitable elegy 
clustered around his soul. 

But, sir, I will not venture to say more on this theme. I have 
said thus much in the name of my native State, to testify her ven- 
eration for worth, patriotism, and departed greatness, and to add 
with proper reverence a handful of earth to the mound a nation 
raises to the memory of the great Secretary, and to say, Peace be 
to the manes of Daniel Webster ! 

Mr. SEYMOUR, of New York, said: — 

Mr. Speaker : I rise in support of the resolutions offered by the 
gentleman from Massachusetts, and in that connexion propose to 
submit a few remarks. 

Sir, our great men are the common property of the country. 
In the days of our prosperity we boast of their genius and enter- 
prise as they advance the general weal. In the hour of a nation's 
peril, the shadow of their great name is the gathering point 
whither we all turn for guidance and defence ; and whether their 
laurels have been gathered on the battle-field, in sustaining our 
rights against hostile nations ; in the halls of legislation, devising 
and enacting those wise and beneficent laws which, by developing 
the resources, instructing the mind, and directing the energies of 
the nation, may be traced on the frame-work of society long aftei- 
their authors have ceased to exist; or in the temple of justice, or 
the sacred desk, regulating the jarring elements of civil life, and 
making men happier and better, they are all parts of one grand 
exhibition, showing through all coming time what the men of the 
present age and of our nation have done for the elevation and 
advancement of our race. To chronicle these results of human 
effort, and to transmit them to future ages, is the province of his- 
tory. In her temple the great and the good are embalmed. 
There they may be seen and read by those who in future genera- 



I 



33 



tious shall emulate tlieir great deeds. Time, whose constant flow 
is continually obliterating and changing the jihysical and social 
relations of all things, cannot efface the landmarks which they 
have raised along the pathway of life. The processes by which 
they attained the grand result, and the associations by which they 
at the time were surrounded, are unknown or forgotten, while we 
contemplate the monuments which their genius and heroism have 
raised. 

"Who that reads the story of the battle of Marathon, by which 
the liberties of Athens were rescued from Persian despotism, stops 
to inquire to what party in that republic Miltiades belonged? 
Who that listens to the thunders of Demosthenes, as he moves all 
Greece to resist the common enemy, attempts to trace his political 
associations? So it will be in the future of this republic. The 
battle of New Orleans will disclose Jackson, the hero and the pa- 
triot, saving his country from her enemies. The debates of the 
Senate Chamber will exhibit Clay, Calhoun, and Webster illus- 
trating and defending the great principles of our Government by 
their lofty patriotism and eloquence. On neither picture will be 
observed whatever we of the present time may judge to have 
savored of the mere politician and the partisan. We, from our 
near proximity, may see, or think we see, the ill-shapen rocks and 
the unseemly caverns which disfigure the sides of these mighty 
Alpine peaks; future ages will only descry their ever-gilded 
summits. 

" Who, then, shall say that Fame 
Is but an empty name .' 
When but for tliese the mighty dead, 
All ages past, a blank had been — 
Sunk in Oblivion's murky bed — 
A desert .waste, a trackless sea ! 
These are the summits seen from far; 
The lofty marks of what hath been ; 
The guides that point to Immortality." 

Sir, I shall not attempt here to even briefly review the public 
life or delineate the true character of Daniel Webster. That 
public life, extending through more than forty years of the growth 
and progi'ess of our country, will doubtless be sketched by those 
of his compeers who have shared with him in his public service. 
That character, too, will best be drawn by those intimate friends 



34 



wlio knew Kim best, and who enjoyed the most favorable opportu- 
nities for observing the operations of his giant mind. 

In looking at what he has achieved, not only in the fields of 
legislation, but in those of literature and jurisprudence, I may say 
he has left a monument of his industry and genius of which his 
countrymen may well be proud. His speeches in the Senate and 
before the assemblies of the people, and his arguments before our 
highest courts, taken together, form the most valuable contribu- 
tion to American literature, language and oratory, which it has 
been the good fortune of any individual to have yet made. Were 
I to attempt it, I should be unable to determine on which of the 
varied scenes of his labors his genius and talents stood pre-emi- 
nent. I can here only speak of his labors as a whole. They were 
the result of great effort — grand in their conception, effective in 
their execution, and permanent in their influences. 

As a son of his native New England, I am proud to refer back 
to the plain and unostentatious manners, the rigid discipline, and 
the early and thorough mental training to be found among the 
yeomanry of that part of our country, as contributing primarily to 
the eminent success of Mr. "Webster in the business of his life. 
Born, reared, and educated, among the granite hills of New Hamp- 
shire, although his attachments to the place of his birth were 
strong to the last, yet, upon the broad theatre upon which he was 
called to act his part as a public man. his sympathies and his pa- 
triotism were bounded only by the confines of the whole RejDublie. 

Although, in common with many of us, I differed in opinion 
from the late Secretaiy of State upon grave j^olitical questions, 
yet, with the great mass of our fellow-citizens, I acknowledge his 
patriotism, and the force and ability with which he sustained his 
own opinions. However we may view those opinions, one thing 
will be conceded by all — his feelings were thoroughly American, 
and his aim the good of his country. In his whole public life, and 
by his greatest efforts as an orator, he has left deeply impressed on 
the American mind one great truth never to be forgotten — the 
preservation of American liberty depends upon the support of the 
Constitution, and the Union of the States. To have thus linked his 
name indissolubly with the perpetuity of our institutions is enough 
of glory for any citizen of the Republic. 



35 

Mr. CHANDLER, of Pennsylvania, said : — 
Mr. Speaker : The selection of the present time to make special 
and official reference to the death of Mr. Webster may bo regarded 
as fortunate and judicious. An earlier moment would have exposed 
our eulogies to those exaggerations which, while they do justice in 
some measure to the feelings whence they spring, are no proofs of 
sound judgment in the utterer, nor sources of honor to their 
lamented object. The great departed owe little to the record of 
then- worth, which is made in the midst of sudden emotions, when 
the freshness of personal intercourse mingles with recollections of 
public virtues, and the object, observed through the tears of recent 
sorrow, bears with it the prismatic hues which distort its fair pro- 
portions, and hide that simplicity which is the characteristic of 
true greatness. And equally just is it to the dead whom we would 
honor, and to our feelings, which would promote that honor, that 
we have not postponed the season to a period when time would so 
have mitigated our just regret as to direct our eidogies only to 
those lofty points of Mr. "Webster's character which strike but 
from afar; which owe their distinction less to their affinities with 
public sympathy, than to their elevation above ordinary ascent and 
ordinary computation. 

That distance, too, in a Government like ours, is dangerous to a 
just homage to the distinguished dead, however willing may be 
the survivor; for smaller objects intervene, and by proximity hide 
the proportions which we survey from afar, and diminish that just 
appreciation which is necessary to the honorable praise that is to 
perpetuate public fame. 

Mr. Webster was a distinguished statesman, tried, sir, in nearly 
all the various positions which in oui' Government the civilian is 
called on to fill, and in all these places the powers of a gifted 
mind, strengthened and improved by a practical education, were 
the great means by which he achieved success, and patriotism the 
motive of their devotion. With aU Mr. Webster's professional 
greatness, with all his unrivalled powers in the Senate, with his 
great distinction as a diplomatist, he was fond of credit as a scholar ; 
and his attainments, if not of the kind which gives eminence to 
merely literary men, were such as gave richness and terseness to 
his own composition, and vigor and attraction to his conversation. 






36 

His mind was moulded to the strong conception of tlie epic poet, 
rather than the gentle phrase of the didactic, and his preference 
for natural scenery seemed to partake of his literary taste — it was 
for the strong, the elevated, the grand. His childhood and youth 
joyed in the rough sides of the mountains of New Hampshire, and 
his age found a delightful repose on the wild shores of Massachu- 
setts bay. He was a lover of nature, not in her holyday suit of 
field and flower, but in those wild exhibitions of broken coast and 
isolated hills, that seem to stir the mind into activity, and provoke 
it into emulation of the grandeur with which it is surrounded. 
Yet, sir, Mr. Webster had with him much of the gentleness which 
gives beauty to social life, and dignity and attraction to the 
domestic scene, just as the rugged coast is often as placid as the 
gentlest lake, and the summit of the roughest hill is frequently 
bathed in the softest sunlight, and clad in flowers of the most 
delicate hues, Mr. Webster's person was strongly indicative of 
the character of his mind ; not formed for the lighter graces, but 
graceful in the noblest uses of manhood : remarkable in the state- 
liness of its movements, and dignified in the magnificence of its 
repose. Mr. Webster could scarcely pass unnoticed, even where 
unknown. There was that in his mien which attracted attention, 
and awakened interest; and his head (whether his countenance 
was lighted by a smile, such as only he could give, or fixed by con- 
templation, such as only he could indulge) seemed an — 

" Arched and ponderous roof. 
By its own weight made steadfast and immovable, 
Looking tranquillity !" 



With all Mr. Webster's lofty gifts and attainments he was 
ambitious. Toiling upwards from the base of the political ladder, 
it is not to be denied that he desu-ed to set his foot upon the up- 
most round. This could not have been a thirst for power ; nothing 
of a desire for the exercise of absolute authority could have been 
in that aspiration ; for the only absolute power left (if any be left) 
by the Constitution in the Executive of this nation is "mercij.'" 
In Mr. Webster it was the distinction which the place conferred, 
and the sphere of usefulness it presented. He regarded it as the 
crowning glory of his public life — a glory earned by his devotion 



37 

of unparalleled talents and unsurpassed statesmansliip. This am- 
bition in- Mr. Webster was modesty. He could not see, as others 
saw and felt, that no political elevation Was necessary to the com- 
pletion of his fame or the distinction of his statesmanship. It was 
not for him to understand that the last round of political prefer- 
ment, honorable as it is, and made more honorable by the lustre 
which purity of motive, great talents, and devoted patriotism are 
now shedding down upon it. He could not understand that pre- 
ferment, honorable as it is, was unnecessary to him ; that it could 
add nothing to his political stature, nor enlarge the horizon of his 
comprehensive views. It is the characteristic of men of true great- 
ness, of exalted talents, to comprehend the natui'e and power of the 
gifts they possess. That, sir, is an homage to God, who bestows 
them. But it is also their misfortune to be dissatisfied with the 
means and opportunities they have possessed to exercise those gifts 
to great national purposes. This is merely distrust of themselves. 
The world, sir, comprehends the uses of the talents of great states- 
men, and gives them credit for their masterly powers, without ask- 
ing that those powers should be tried in every position in which 
public men may be placed. 

I see not in all the character, gifts, and attainments of Mr. 
Webster, any illustration of the British orator's exclamation rela- 
tive to " the shadows which we are ;" nor do I discover in the 
splendid career, and the aims of his lofty ambition, any thing to 
prove " what shadows we pursue." 

The life of such a man as DANiEii Webster is one of solid great- 
ness ; and the objects he pursued are worthy a being made in the 
image of God. A life of honorable distinction is a substantive 
and permanent object. The good of man, and the true glory and 
happiness of his counti-y, are the substantial things, the record of 
which generation hands down to generation, inscribed with the 
name of him that pursued them. I will not, sir, trespass on this 
House by any attempt to sketch the character or narrate the ser- 
vices of Mr. Webster; too many will have a share in this day's 
exercises to allow one speaker so extensive a range. It is enough 
for me, if, in obeying the indications of others, I give to my effort 
the tone of respect with which the statesman and' the patriot 
Webster was regarded, as well by the nation at largej as by those 



38 



wbom I have the honor to reprosont on this floor. And in the 
remarks of those whose means of judging have been better than 
mine, will be found his characteristics of social and domestic life. 

How keenly Mr. "Webster relished the relaxations which public 
duties sometimes allowed, I had an opportunity of judging; for he 
loved to call to my recollection scenery which had been familiar to 
me in childhood, as it was lovely to him in age. Though dying 
in office, Mr. Webster was permitted to breathe his last in scenes 
made classical to others by his uses, and dear to him by their 
ministrations to, and correspondence with, his taste. 

The good of his country undoubtedly occupied the last moments 
of his ebbing life ; but those moments were not disturbed by the 
immediate pressure of official duties ; and in the dignity of domes- 
tic quiet he passed onward ; and while at a distance communities 
awaited in grief and awe the signal of his departure, the deep 
diapason of the Atlantic wave, as it broke upon his own shore, 
was a fitting requiem for such a parting spirit. 

Mr. BAYLY, of Virginia, said: — 

I had been, sir, nearly two years a member of Congress before 
I made Mr. Webster's acquaintance. About that time a proceeding 
was instituted here, of a delicate character so far as he was con- 
cerned, and incidentally concerning an eminent constituent and 
friend of mine. This circumstance first brought me into intercourse 
with Mr. Webster. Subsequently I transacted a good deal of official 
business with him, some of it also of a delicate character. I thus 
had unusual opportunities of forming an opinion of the man. The 
acquaintance I made with him, under the cii'cumstances to which 
I have referred, ripened into friendship. It is to these circum- 
stances that I, a political opponent, am indebted for the honor, as 
I esteem it, of having been requested to say something on this 
occasion. 

From my early manhood, of course, sir, I have been well ac- 
quainted with Mr. Webster's public character, and I had formed 
my ideal of him as a man ; and what a misconception of it was 
that ideal ! Rarely seeing him in public places, in familiar inter- 
course with his friends, contemplating his grave statue-like appear- 
ance in the Senate and the Forum, I had formed the conception 



I 



39 

that lie was a frigid iron-bound man, wliom few could approach 
without constraint; and I undertake to say that— -until of late 
years, in which, through personal sketches of him by his friends, 
the public has become acquainted with his private character — 
such was the idea most persons, who knew him only as I did, 
fornnd of him. Yet, sir, what a misconception ! No man could 
appreciate Mr. Webster who did not know him privately. No man 
^ould appreciate him who did not see him in familiar intercourse 
with his friends, and especially around his own fireside and table. 
There, sir, he was confiding, gay, and sometimes downright boy- 
ish. Full of racy anecdote, he told them in the most captivating 
manner. 

Who that ever heard his description of men and things can ever 
forget them? Mr. Webster, sir, attached a peculiar meaning to 
the word talk, and, in his sense of the term he liked to talk ; and 
who that ever heard him talk can forget that talk? Sometimes it 
was the most playful wit, then the most pleasing philosophy. Mr. 
Webster, sir, owed his greatness to a large extent to his native 
gifts. 

Among his contemporaries there were lawyers more learned, yet 
he was, by common consent, assigned the first place at the American 
bar. As a statesman, there were those more thoroughly informed 
than he, yet what statesman ranked him ? Among orators there 
were those more graceful and impressive, yet what orator was 
greater than he ? There were scholars more ripe, yet who wrote 
better English? The characteristics of his mind were massive 
strength and classic beauty combined, with a rare felicity. His 
favorite studies, if I may judge from his conversations, were the 
history and the Constitution of his own country, and the history 
and Constitution of England ; and I undertake to say, that there 
is not now a man living who was more perfectly familiar with both. 
His favorite amusements, too, if I may judge in the same way, 
were field-sports and out-door exercise. I have frequently heard 
Mr. Webster say, if he had been a merchant he would have been 
an out-door partner. Mr. "Webster was, as all great men are, 
eminently magnanimous. As proof of this see his whole life, and 
especially that crowning act of magnanimity, his letter to Mr. 
Dickinson. Mr. Webster had no envy or jealousy about him — 



40 



as no great man ever had. Conscious of liis own powers, lie envied 
those of no one else. Mr. Calhoun and himself entered public life 
about the same time ; each of them strove for the first honors of 
the Republic. They were statesmen of rival schools. They fre- 
quently met in the stern encounter of debate, and when they met 
the conflict was a conflict of giants. Yet how delightful it was to 
hear ]Mr. Webster speak, as I have heard him speak, in the most 
exalted terms of Calhoun ; and how equally delightful it was to 
hear Mr. Calhoun, as I have heard him, speak in like terms of 
Webster. On one occasion Mr. Calhoun, speaking to me of the 
characteristics of Webster as a debater, said that he was remark- 
able in this, that he always stated the argument of his antagonist 
fairly, and boldly met it. ^e'said he had even seen him state the 
argument of his opponent more forcibly than his opponent had 
stated it himself, and if he could not answer it, he would never 
undertake to weaken it by misrepresenting it. What a compli- 
ment was this, coming, as it did, from his great rival in Constitu- 
tional law ? I have also heard Mr. Calhoun say that Mr. Webster 
tried to aim at truth more than any statesman of his day. 

A short time since, Mr. Speaker, when addressing the House 
at the invitation of the delegation from Kentucky, on the occasion 
of Ml'. Clay's death, I used this language : 

" Sir, it is but a short time since the American Congress buried 
the first one that went to the grave of that great triumvirate, 
(Calhoun.) We are now called upon to bury another, (Clay.) The 
third, thank God! still lives; and long may he live to enlighten 
his countrymen by his wisdom, and set them the example of ex- 
alted patriotism. [Alas ! how little did I think, when I uttered 
these words, that my wish was so soon to be disappointed.] Sir, 
in the lives and characters of these great men there is much resem- 
bling those of the great triumvirate of the British Parliament. 
It differs principally in this: Burke preceded Fox and Pitt to the 
tomb. Webster survives Clay and Calhoun. When Fox and Pitt 
died they left no peer behind them. Webster still lives, now that 
Calhoun and Clay are dead, the unrivalled statesman of his coun- 
try.. Like Fox and Pitt, Clay and Calhoun lived in troubled times. 
Lilce Fox and Pitt, they were each of them the leader of rival 
parties. Like Fox and Pitt, they wee idolized by their friends. 
Like Fox and Pitt they died about the same time, and in the 
public service ; and, as has been said of Fox and Pitt, Clay and 
Calhoun died with ' their harness upon them.' Like Fox and Pitt — 



41 



'• ' Witli more than mortal power? endow 'd, 
How Iiigli they soar'd above the crowd ; 
Theirs was no common party race, 
Jostlin;; by dark intrigue for place — 
Like tabled gods their mighty wnr 
Shook realms and nations in its jar. 
Beneath each banner, proud to stand, 

Look'd up tlie noblest ottlie land. 

***** 

Here let their discord with them die. 
Speak not lor those a separate doom 
Wliom fate made brothers in the tomb ; 
But search the land of living men, 
VVheie wilt thou find their like again ." " 

I may reproduce on this occasion, with propriety, what I then 
said, with the addition of the names of Burke and Webster. The 
parallel that I undertook to run on that occasion, by the aid of a 
poet, was not designed to be perfect, yet it might be strengthened 
by lines from another poet. For though Webster's enemies must 
admit, as Burke's satirist did, that — 

" Too fond of the right, to pursue the expedient;" 

yet what satirist, with the last years of Webster's life before him, 
will undertake to shock the public sentiment of America by say- 
ing, as was unjustly said of Burke by his satirist — 

" Born for the universe, he narrowed liis mind, 
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind." 

Mr. Speakee, during the brief period I have served with you in 
this House, what sad havoc has death made among the statesmen 
of our Republic ! Jackson, Wright,, Polk, McDuffie, and Sergeant, 
in private life, and Woodbury from the Bench, have gone to the 
tomb ! We have buried in that short time Adams, Calhoun, Tay- 
lor, and Clay, and we are now called on to pay the last tribute of 
our respect to the memory of Daniel Webster. Well may I ask, 
in the language of the poem already quoted — 

" Where wilt thou find their like again." 

There was little, I fear, in the history of the latter days of some 
of those great men to whom I have alluded, to inspire the young 
men of our country to emulate them in the labors and sacrifices 
of public life. Yet there never was a time when there was a 
stronger obligation of patriotic duty on us to emulate them in that 
respect than now. 

They followed one race of Revolutionaiy statesmen — they were 

the second generation of statesmen of our country. With one or 
15 



42 

two brilliant exceptions, that second generation has passed away, 
and those that now have charge of public affairs, with the excep- 
tions referred to, are emphatically new men. God grant we have 
the patriotism to follow faithfully in the footsteps of those who 
preceded us ! 



Mr. STANLY, of North Carolina, said : — 
Mr. Speaker : I feel that it is proper and becoming in me, as 
the Representative of a people who claim the reputation of Daniel 
Webster as part of their most valuable property, to add a few 
words to what has been already said. I do not think that it is 
necessary to his fame to do so. I have no idea of attempting a 
eulogy on Daniel Webster. It would be presumptuous to attempt 
it. Long before my entrance into public life I heard from an 
illustrious citizen of my native State, the late Judge Gaston, that 
Mr. Webster, who was his contemporary in Congress, gave early 
indication of the wonderful abilities which he afterwards displayed. 
There were giants in the land in those days, and by them Webster 
was regarded as one who would earn great distinction. Before he 
reached the height of his fame, the young men in our land had 
been taught to respect him. This was the feeling of those who 
came forward on the stage of life with me. In what language, 
then, can I express my admiration of those splendid abilities which 
have delighted and instructed his countrymen, and charmed the 
lovers of Republican government throughout the earth? How 
shall I find fitting terms to speak of his powers in conversation, 
his many good qualities in social life, his extraordinary attainments, 
his exalted patriotism ? Sir, I shrink from the task. Gifted men 
from the pulpit, eloquent Senators at home and in the Senate, 
orators in Northern, Southern, and Western States, have gratified 
the public mind by doing honor to his memory. To follow in a 
path trodden by so many superior men, requires more boldness 
than I possess. But I cannot forbear to say, that we North Caro- 
linians sympathise with Massachusetts in her loss. We claim him 
as our Webster, as we do the memories of her great men of the 
Revolution. Though he has added glory to the bright name of 
Massachusetts, he has been the defender of that Constitution which 
has surrounded with impregnable bulwarks the invaluable blessings 



43 

of civil liberty. When he made Massachusetts hearts throb with 
pride that she had such a man to represent her in the councils of 
the nation, we, too, felt proud at her joy, for her glory is our glory. 

Faneuil Hall is in Boston,, and Boston in Massachusetts ; but the 
fame of those whose eloquence from those walls fanned the fire of 
liberty in the hearts of American patriots, and made tyrants 
tremble on their thrones, is the fame of the American people. 

Faneuil Hall ! Daniel Webster ! The American patriot who 
hereafter performs his pilgrimage to that time-honored Hall, and 
looks at his portrait, appropriately placed there, will involuntarily 
repeat what the poet said of the Webster of poets — 

" Here nature listening stood, while Shakspeare played, 
And wondered at the work herself had made." 

Daniel Webster was to the Eevolutionary patriots of Massa- 
chusetts, to the founders of our Constitution in the Old Thirteen 
States, what Homer was to the ancient heroes. Their deeds would 
have lived without him. Their memories would have been cher- 
ished by their countrymen had Webster never spoken. But who 
can say that his mighty ability, his power of language, unequalled 
throughout the world — who can say he has not embalmed their 
memories, painted their deeds in beautiful drapery, and by the 
might of his genius held them up in captivating form to his coun- 
trymen ? Who is there on the habitable globe, wherever man is 
struggling for freedom, wherever Washington's name is heard and 
reverenced — who is there who will ever read the history of those 
immortal men who achieved our liberties, and founded with almost 
supernatural wisdom our Constitution and Bepublican form of 
Government, who can ever read the history of these great men 
without saying they achieved much, they performed great and 
noble deeds, but Webster's oratory has emblazoned them to the 
world, and erected monuments to their memories more enduring 
than marble? Can man aspire to higher honor, than to have 
his name associated with such men ? This honor, by universal 
consent, Daniel Webster, the son of a New Hampshire farmer, 
has secured. Wherever liberty is prized on earth, in whatever 
quarter of the globe the light of our great Republic is seen, send- 
ing its cheering beams to the heart of the lonely exile of oppression, 
in that land, and to that heart, will the name of Webster be held 



44 

in grateful remembrance. As we cannot think of the founders of 
our Republic without thinking of Webstei-, we cannot speak on his 
services properly except in his own words. How many of us, in 
and out of Congress, since his death, have recalled his memorable 
words, in his eulogium on Adams and Jefferson. Hear him in 
that discourse: 

" Adams and Jefferson, I have said, are no more. As human 
beings, indeed, they are no more. They are no more, as in 1776, 
bold and fearless advocates of independence ; no more, as on sub- 
sequent periods, the head of the Government; no more, as we 
have recently seen them, aged and venerable objects of admiration 
and regard. They are no more. They are dead. But how little 
is there of the great and good which can die ! To their country 
they yet live, and live forever. They live in all that perpetuates 
the remembrance of men on earth ; in the recorded proofs of their 
great actions ; in the offspring of their intellect ; in the deep en- 
graved lines of public gratitude, and in the respect and homage 
of mankind. They live in their example ; and they live, emphat- 
ically, and will live, in the influence which their lives and efforts, 
their princij)les and opinions, now exercise, and will continue to 
exercise, on the affairs of men, not only in their country, but 
throughout the civilized world. A superior and commanding 
human intellect, a truly great man, when Heaven vouchsafes so 
rare a gift, is not a temporary flame, burning bright for a while, 
and then expiring, giving place to returning darkness. It is rather 
a spark of fervent heat as well as radiant light, with power to 
enkindle the common mass of human mind; so that when it glim- 
mers, in its own decay, and finally goes out in death, no night 
follows, but it leaves the world all light, all on fire, from the potent 
contact of its own spirit. Bacon died, but the human understand- 
ing, roused by the touch of his miraculous wand to a perception of 
the true philosophy, and the just mode of inquiring after truth, has 
kept on its course, successfully and gloriously. Newton died, yet the 
courses of the spheres are still known, and they yet move or in the 
orbits which he saw and described for them in the infinity of space." 

Who can hear these words without feeling how appropriate and 
applicable to the great American statesman ? To his country he 
" still lives," and will live forever. 

Mr. Speaker, I fear to go on. The thoughts which are in my 
mind are not worthy of the great subject. I have read and heard 
so much from the able, learned, and eloquent of our land in his 
praise, I shrink from attempting to add any thing more. 

In justice to the feelings of those I represent, I felt solicitous to 



45 



cast my pebble on the pile which was erecting to his memory. 
Thoy venerate his memory not only for those services to which I 
have referred, but also for his later exhibitions of patriotism, in 
stemming the torrent of temporary excitement at home. The year 
1852, Mr. Speaker, will long be memorable in the annals of our 
country. In this year three great lights of our age and our 
country have gone out. But a few months since the voice of 
lamentation was heard from the Atlantic to the Pacific shore that 
Henry Clay was no more. The sounds of sorrow had scarcely 
died in our ears when inexorable Death, striking with remorseless 
hand at the cottage of the peasant and the palace of the great — 
Death, as if to send terror to our souls, by showing us that the 
greatest in place and in genius are but men, has destroyed all that 
was mortal of Daniel Webster. 

And even while we were celebrating his obsequies, the sagacious 
statesman, the wise counsellor, the pure and upright man, John 
Sergeant, of Pennsylvania, the man who more happily combined 
suaviter in modo with the fortiter in re than any public man I 
have ever met with — the model of that best of all characters, a 
Christian gentleman, always loving " whatsoever things are true, 
honest, just, lovely, and of good report," John Sergeant is called 
to that beatific vision reserved for "the pure in heart." 

Let it be our pleasure, as it will be our duty, to t^h those 
who come after us to imitate the private virtues, remember the 
public services, and cherish the reputation of these illustrious men. 
And, while we do this, let us cherish, with greatful remembrance 
and honest pride, the thought that these great men were not only 
lovers of liberty, friends of republican institutions, and patriots 
devoted to the service of their country, but that they were, with 
sincere conviction, believers in the Christian religion. 

Without this praise, the Corinthian columns of their characters 
would be deprived at once of the chief ornaments of its capital 
and the solidity of its base. 

I fervently hope the lessons we have had of the certainty of 
death will not be lost upon us. May they make us less fond of 
the pleasures of this world, so rapidly passing away ; may they 
cause those who are in high places of trust and honor to remem- 
ber now in the days of health, manhood, and prosperity, that — 



46 

' The boast of heraldry, tlie pomp of power, 
And all that beautj^, all that wealth e'er gave, 
Await alike tlie inevitable hour — 
The paths of glory lead but to the grave." 



Mr. TAYLOR, of Ohio, said : — 

In the Congress of 1799, Mr. Speaker, when tlie announce- 
ment of the death of General Washington was made in this body, 
appropriate resolutions were passed to express the high apprecia- 
tion of the Representatives of the people of the pre-eminent public 
services of the Father of his Country, and their profound grief for 
their loss. His death was considered a great national calamity, 
and, in the beautiful and appropriate language of General Henry 
Lee, who prepared the resolutions introduced by John Marshall, 
he was proclaimed as having been " First in war, first in peace, 
and first in the hearts of his fellow-citizens." The whole nation 
cordially responded to that sentiment, and from that day to this 
the high eulogium has been adopted by the people of the United 
States of America as the just and expressive tribute to the greatest 
man, take him all in all, that our country had then, or has since 
produced. Time rolled on ; and the sentiment of his own country 
has, of late years, become the intelligent opinion of the whole 
world. And in proof of this I might cite, among others, the de- 
liberately-recorded opinions of the late Premier Guizot, of France, 
and the great though eccentric writer and statesman. Brougham, 
of England, men of vast celebrity. 

Our country, then in its infancy, has grown up, in a little more 
than half a century, to be the first Republic in the world, having 
increased from three or four millions to nearly twenty-five millions 
of inhabitants, and extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific 
ocean. During the present year the nation has been called upon 
to mourn the death of two of her most distinguished citizens — 
two men, born since the establishment of our independence, cradled 
in the Revolution, and brought up, as it were, at the feet of the 
fathers of the Republic, whose long public career has attracted to 
them, and all that concerned them, more than to any others, the 
admiration, the gratitude, and the hopes of the whole people. 
These men — Henry Clay and Daniel Webster — have both been 
gathered to their fathers dm-ing the present year. When, during 



47 

our last session, the official announcemont was made in this house 
of the death of Henry Clay, I listened, with heart-felt sympathy, 
to the eloquent and beautiful eulogies then pronounced upon his 
character, and felt in the fulness of my heart the truest grief As 
one of the representatives of the great and prosperous State of 
Ohio on this floor, I desired then to mingle my humble voice with 
those who eagerly sought to honor his memory. But no opportu- 
nity was afforded me, and I could only join with meekness of spirit 
and a bowed mind in the appropriate funeral honors which were 
rendered to the illustrious dead by Congress. And I only now 
desire to say that no State in this Union — not even his own be- 
loved Kentucky — more deeply felt the great loss which, in the 
death of Mr. Clay, the nation had sustained, than the State of 
Ohio; and the public meetings of her citizens, without distinction 
of party, in the city in which I reside, and many other parts of the 
State, expressed, in appropriate and feeling terms, their high esti- 
mate of his great public services, and their profound grief for his 
death. 

And now, sir, since the adjournment of Congress at its last 
session, he who co-operated with Mr. Clay in the legislative and 
executive Departments, at various times, for nearly forty years, 
and to whom, with his great compatriot, more than to any others, 
the people looked for counsel and for security and peace — he too 
has paid the debt of nature, and will never more be seen among 
men. The formal announcement in this body of the death of 
Daniel Webster has elicited just and eloquent tributes to his 
memory, and brings freshly to our view the beautiful traits of his 
private character, and his great and long continued public service 
in the Senate and in the executive Departments of the Grovern- 
ment. In all that is said in commendation of the private virtues 
and pre-eminent public services of Daniel Webster, I heartily 
concur ; and I wish, sir, that I could find words sufficiently strong 
and appropriate to express what, in my judgment, were the great 
claims of these two eminent men upon the admiration and upon 
the gratitude of their countrymen. They were in many respects 
exemplars for the young men of our country. Born in humble 
life, without any of the advantages conferred sometimes by wealth 
and position ; struggling with adversities in their earlier years ; 



48 



triumpliing over all obstacles by their native strength of intellect, 
by their genius, and by their persevering industry and great 
energy, they placed themselves in the very first rank of American 
statesmen, and for more than forty years were the great leaders of 
the American mind, and amongst the brightest guardians of their 
common country. 

Sir, it was my good fortune to have known for many years both 
these great patriots, and to have enjoyed their friendship ; and I 
think I but express the general sentiment of the intelligent people 
of this great country when I say, that our country is, in a very large 
degree, indebted to them for its present unexampled prosperity, for 
its peace and domestic happiness, and for its acknowledged powei' 
and high renown aU over the world. In my judgment, the words 
of the National Legislature, so beautifully and aptly imbodying the 
true character of the Father of his Country, were not more appro- 
priately uttered then, in reference to him, than they might be ap- 
plied now, so far as relates to the civil affairs and action of our 
Grovernment within the last forty years, to Henry Clay and Daniel 
AVebster ; and it may be properly said of them, that within that 
time they have been emphatically " first in war, first in peace, and 
first in the hearts of then" fellow-citizens." But, sir, the great 
men of a country must die ; and if the great men of a country are 
pre-eminently good men, their loss is the more severely felt. 
Nothing human is perfect ; and I am far from believing, much less 
from asserting, that the eminent men of whom I have spoken were 
without defects of character. But I believe their virtues so far out- 
weighed the imperfections of their nature, that to dwell upon such 
defects on this occasion would be as unprofitable and futile, as to 
object to the light, and heat, and blessings of the glorious sun, 
guided by the Omnipotent hand, because an occasional shadow or 
spot may be seen on his disk. These guardians of our country 
have passed away, but their works and good examples are left for 
our guidance, and are part of the lasting and valued possessions of 
this nation. And, Mr, Speaker — 

" When the bright guardians of a country die, 
The grateful tear in tenderness will start ; 
And tlie keen anguish of a rcd'ning eye . 

Disclose the deep afflictiona of the heart." 



